Sex Kites and Videotape

Yesterday I had all those mundane things to do. Not very exciting but they had to be done and you cant buy a slave at Tesco. Therefore, I was not expecting that much exciting to happen today. Also when I had finished doing my chores, I had to go to the Metro Centre (a big out of town shopping centre), never my favourite place to visit.

However the weather was sunny and I thought I would enjoy watching the wildlife along the route. While the bus was trundling along a red kite came into sight. Not that unusual and as my regular reader will know any day that I see the them makes it “A Red Kite Day”. Much better than a red letter day. What made this sighting worthy of comment is the bird was flying on a parallel course to the bus. It stayed that way for nearly two minutes and it came within fifteen yards of the omnibus too. It was one of those moments when I wished I had carried a camera. Great to see though, and had the bus not had to pull up to a stop the sighting would have lasted longer.

There were three main reasons why I wanted and needed to go to the shopping centre, the first was that I needed some more video tapes for the IR camera. While I have some on order via mail order, when I did my observations of the Deer recently I used what I had. So I had to get some more. While I have plenty for the other camera, this one uses a different format. Therefore I had to spend over five pounds each on three more. Also I wanted to check on the times of some of the buses as I am planing on doing some wandering. You will need to keep reading here as if I can get the access I have something special I want to go and see and film. I also wanted to get some of the regional bus tickets that will allow me to get out and explore some of the great places there are in the North East of England.

The last thing that I needed to obtain was a new colander, that's a straining device for food. I though I had better add that as I know that I have gotten myself into difficulties with my American readers who have different meanings for words that us Brits take for granted. My old colander that I have had for over twenty five years started to split. My Exs, both thought that I was a skin flint for not replacing it years ago, but it worked well and why get rid of something that is working well.

While I was looking at the kitchen utensils, I also looked at the kitchen knives. As my British reader will know in the news there has been a lot of debate about knives and knife crime. While I don't want to see people carrying knives as a weapon or potential weapon, there are times when a knife is no more than a tool. I love cooking and I do have a couple of decent kitchen knives. However the paring knife I have is a cheep one and the handle is becoming loose. So I wanted to replace this for a good quality one. I did find a Sabatier one, not cheap but it will last my lifetime. However what made this purchase worthy of comment was just how little attention the shop paid to the need to need to carry this home in a safe and non public manner. I had to ask for something to wrap the knife in. The woman even acknowledged that she hadn't thought about that when I asked how I was supposed to carry it home.

Also while on this topic, there are times when I do have the need to carry a knife. I am sensible and do not carry it openly in public spaces, but some conservation work does require using bladed tools like a knife. There have been calls in the press for knives to be banned and the carrying of them to result in a mandatory prison sentence. I can see nothing but problems, as people who have a legitimate reason for carrying a knife, a fisherman is one that springs to mind, could end up being sent to prison for going about their lawful business. The problem is the people who are carrying a knife as a weapon Further, apparently there are some young people who think that there are safe places where you can stab someone in a fight... All nonsense and it seems to me that the real difficulty is one of education.

Coming back home, I found myself on a crowded bus. The service to the village, while it could be better, more frequent, it is not that bad. While during the day the buses are not full, they are well used. It is when I find myself travelling at peek times that the importance of these services become highlighted. Because of the number of people on the bus I nearly missed seeing a couple of Badgers that were traversing around the fields of one of the farms close to the village.

As it was only six in the evening I wanted to discover what was going on. As it is the school summer holidays it did cross my mind that it was possible that the kids had disturbed the Badgers, as it is not usual for badgers to be out at this time. While I know that some kids can be a bit of a nuisance at times, the vast majority are just thoughtless rather than bad I did not think that this was likely to be the reason why the badgers were roaming at this time of day.

Therefore, I did not even stop for a cup of tea, I was gasping, and grabbed my camera and went out to see if I could find out what was occurring. While I could have waited for the bus again, I also knew that I was just as likely to get there as fast on foot.

As I got near to the satellite sett where the badgers were likely to have come from, I encountered one of the know poachers. He has a Lurcher and Terrier, classic poaching dogs. I said hello and he seemed quite nonchalant and friendly. So I was bold, and asked him if he had seen anything that could have disturbed the Badgers. He was quite open about the fact that he is a poacher but he would not do anything to harm the badgers. But he had not seen anything that could have disturbed them.

I went off felling reassured to see if I could find the tracks of the Badgers and to see if I could find any disturbance. There was non except for some fresh digging by the badgers. I could see two sets of tracks one from a sow the other from a Brock. I followed them and they did lead to the farmers field and there was indications that they were feeding and gathering bedding. As I don't have permission to go onto that farm, I could only watch from the boundary.

This was at least an hour after having first spotted them from the bus, but the badgers were still there. Further I worked out what had disturbed them, it was hormones. While I could not see clearly, I could see they were mating. I tried to track their movements but in the long grass I lost sight of them but I was able to follow the paw prints back to the sett. I am not sure but I think the male is new to the area he looks quite young but the female is about two years old and they appear to have set up a little love nest. I will have to keep my eyes open and see if I can work out what is going on. But seeing Badgers active in daylight is very rare indeed, seeing Badgers mating is almost unknown.