It had rained on and off for much of the day, but the sun shone from a clear blue sky as I walked along the river bank through the wet grass in the evening. The first flush of dandelion flowers had changed to seedheads, and the white spheres in the water meadow were lit by golden sunlight as I crossed towards Quesse wood.

The wood contained a rich blue carpet of bluebells in full flower, and as I settled against a tree opposite the badger sett, a late bee buzzed past my foot, going from flower to flower. I listened to bird song for half an hour until the first badger appeared at the usual hole just before nine o'clock. It was very cautious, but after sniffing the air thoroughly, surprised me by immediately going up the bank towards the field.

Ten minutes later, scanning the sett with my binoculars, I saw a badger appear from another hole backwards, humping soil between its front paws. Perhaps I had missed him when he first came up and checked for danger, for he was totally confident and engrossed in his task of home extension, repeatedly humping loads of earth up the tunnel and out onto the mound outside the hole.

After a while, the one which had gone up the bank returned to the hole and re-emerged with another one with which it scratched companionably. They then both went up the bank and settled in front of a big sycamore tree above the hole, grooming each other and rolling on their backs to scratch themselves luxuriously.

Two more badgers then emerged from the same hole and joined the other two in a very playful mood. All four badgers spent about five minutes chasing each other, biting each others tails and indulging in mock mating, while I watched through binoculars from the other side of the valley in the deepening dusk. It became more difficult to follow what was going on in the darkness, and when three of them disappeared, I could not tell whether they had gone back into the sett or had cleared off hunting. The fourth, who I felt sure was the suckling female, stood on the mound outside the main hole, listening intently, and I hoped that I might be about to see her cubs. However, she went back down the hole and did not reappear.

I waited for a while, watched a heron fly across the strip of still bright sky, and jumped as a fox screamed about thirty yards away towards the mouth of the valley. I scanned the darkness with my binoculars, hoping to see him, and then started to move quietly along the badger path toward the fox. As I reached the bluff at the mouth of the valley, he screamed hoarsely from the opposite bank again, three times, urgent and aggressive. I stood in the darkness with my body tingling all over and all my senses on edge, but heard no more.

As I crossed the water meadow, the dandelion globes glowed in the moonlight, and a light mist moved slowly over the surface of the river.

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