25th February 2024

So what to title this next thought, it was Pat (Weaver) who triggered a memory.  "Badger droppings are fascinating".  As someone who has walked a fair mile over the same land for many years.  I knew where the badgers lived.

In fact many years ago when I lived in Bath I  belonged to a badger group to protect these animals.  The white van with its men and dogs probably came from Bristol would be sighted, and though the police told us not to tackle them, a friend did and her dog was killed.  Nasty brutes these men who set their dogs on badgers.  It was a huge old badger sett alongside a rabbit burrow, a large enclave.  Badgers love a bit of tender rabbit and hens of course.  I remember getting up in the middle of the night to find a badger chasing a hen in our garden. Moss and I went out, the badger had pushed up the top of the nesting box of the chicken hutch and was chasing one very noisy chicken around.  I set out immediately to rescue, Moss, being a sensible sheepdog, was so overcome by this strange creature he just looked on in wide eyed astonishment.  Badger eventually stopped and half an hour later I found my terrified chicken cowering behind a plant.  Badgers are carnivorous!  First lesson.

There was another large badger set up on the Langridge, it was in a small protected meadow with orchids, cowslips and Ladies Smock in the spring.

 

It looked over the  peaceful Saint Catherine's valley that had Freezing Hill in the distance.  The sett of the badgers was again fairly large perhaps a kind hearted land owner had left this field for them, it was off the Cotswold trackway.  Of course there were also the two Langridge barrows in the field as well - a boundary marking between Gloucester and Somerset. 

East Kennett the long barrow hidden by trees

There is also a badger sett in a long barrow, this is the East Kennett long barrow on private land though when I went I did not know.  At the badgers entrance there is the white of stone, the barrow itself is enormous measuring itself against the West Kennett Long barrow, a mile away or so.  East Kennett has never been excavated (except by badgers of course) probably keeping it for future excavation.

Badger entrance

There is one more badger sett I recall.  This was in Normanby, not sure it was occupied but dear old Lucy, my spaniel, was always eager to get down the hole. And pulling her plump bum out was quite a struggle but luckily I always managed.  One thing to notice though, it sat at the end of a very long bank to a field, and in this bank lived lots of rabbits, the larder was attached to the sett!