Badgers' Revenge

For years a family has nightly put out some food for badgers - mostly bread and peanuts, though they appear to relish bits of…

For years a family has nightly put out some food for badgers - mostly bread and peanuts, though they appear to relish bits of cheese when there is some left over from the table. There used to be more of them, but recently there have been usually seen one young - black and white - and an elderly brown, who is usually first on the scene. They are described as "omnivorous and opportunistic foragers". Worms appear to loom large on their diet, also beetles, caterpillars, nests of wasps and bees, and the eggs of birds and even the birds themselves when ground-nesting. The list is long. They take carrion, rabbits. Worms, however, are a major item with them. On examination in the UK, 75 per cent stomach contents had earthworms present - and 65 per cent only worms. Some eat hedgehogs, indeed specialise in them; then berries of every sort, cereals, too.

You would wonder what they do not eat. Anyway, this family which nightly puts out bread, peanuts and other items left over which badgers could include in their long list of dietary items, has had a rude shock. On one night recently the badger-lovers were away from home and forgot to arrange with other members of the family to fill the gap. Next night, after dark of course, they fed the brutes as usual and noticed nothing. But in the sunlight on the following day the damage became obvious. There was one big hole in the lawn, a foot across and nearly as deep; moreover at least half a dozen smaller holes, mostly about the size of the odd badger-scrape that had been noticed only very occasionally in the past.

In the big hole there were bulbs - uneaten. Maybe some had been gobbled, but perhaps they did not find the daffodils to their liking, or the crocuses, or even the snowdrops. Anyway the badger-lovers filled all the holes and patted down the earth. Next night the brutes were fed and only two small scrapes were found in the morning.

Serve you right says the cynic. This has not happened before. Mind you the ground - under a huge oak - is drier than ever remembered. They can't have got any worms either there or elsewhere.

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And that's the badgers' revenge. You have to pay for the entertainment you get, at times, from watching them, and maybe it will come to the family to get down to digging for worms to feed their pets. Pets!! Y