The land of badgers

Early twilight walking, we go to see if the badgers are about yet. Here the world is so overgrown with green that the badgers have made tunnels through the bracken. We sniff and rub against the bracken stems to leave a message for the striped bears when they wake. We have been here.

We look deep into the badgers home. New straw shows that cubs are here too. But all is silent. We can almost hear them dreaming of the night to come.

Pixie climbs the twilight fence post and looks across the sea where a distant lighthouse flashes a pulsing beat.

Twilight walking

Across the farm and up to the green lane and Kiffer came too. It was late and the light was falling out of the day and stars were beginning to shine. The sky was a velvet blue and in the lane the branches of the thorn trees were like sharp bars.

We did not go far, though Kiffer wanted to go on to the top of the hill. This is the time of foxes and badgers and it was Kiffer's first time away from the house. Coming back down the hill she lingered in the lane and made deamon eyes in the dark behind Pixie.

Maurice and the small striped bear of Britain

After days of blue sky we all woke this morning to a sky the colour and texture of the inside of an oyster shell, a pearly day, still, calm and quiet. We walked, just Her and me, over the hill, but our path was blocked by the wild ponies, so we skirted around them.

Brave as only a cat can be I stalked through the bones of last years heather flowers, and the ponies did not see me.

Across the hill I hunted, between tree and rock, a wild place. And then She thought to go an see the city of badgers. They would not be out now. They would be sleeping, for badgers are night time and dusk creatures. They would be sleeping, curled in their setts in nests of bracken and moss and their cubs would be curled tight too, for warmth and to keep away the dreams of daytime.

So, we followed the track over the hill to the small wood and the city of badgers and there were their setts and the signs of spring, scratchings and gatherings of clean nesting bracken. Closer I crept and She worried, for badgers are fierce and wild with paws so strong and claws as long as fingers. I stood, two cats tails away from one of the doorways, and secretly called.

And out came a badger, face striped and blinking. The badger ran from the one hole, skirted around me, down to the other, so shocked to see in the bright light of daytime, a creature coloured like the setting sun fallen on her doorstep. Too fast to photograph, as close as a whisker, and She so worried by the fierceness of the wild thing. I looked up at Her, and smiled a secret cat smile, and thanked the small striped bear of Britain for granting us an audience on this pearl of a day.