Badgers go nuts in May

A temporarily closed  route across farmland having reopened, I followed the badgers' 'desire path' around a low hill (right). I was puzzled to find the ground pockmarked (left) with hundreds of shallow pits dug into the soil - for worms? No, too dry, it hasn't rained for ages. But as I walked I noticed the modest umbelliferous white flowers poised on delicate stems among the grass (top left): Conopodium majus or pignut. Pigs love them and so do badgers, because at the end of the single delicate root there's a hazelnut-like nugget of crunchiness -  also relished by humans in the past. 

Close by, too, were many generously-filled dung pits (insert, bottom left), as if their users couldn't be bother to leave these rich pickings for a moment longer than necessary. I can imagine that now is  the high spot of the badgers' year, when all local brocks make a bee-line for this field each evening to dig and munch and crap until the sun comes up when they lumber back to their setts to dream of the next night's feast.

(I blipped the actual 'nuts'  here.  Without a badger's strong paws they are very difficult to unearth by hand since the root tapers and detaches with the slightest tweak. Think 'de-fusing a bomb' is the best advice.)

This discovery gave me a lot of pleasure. Those of us who relish the observation, fascination and distraction that the natural world provides are so fortunate. For example, recently I've got to know about the remarkable, teenage, Autistic Naturalist (as he calls himself)  Dara McAnulty . Only 16, this young man from Northern Ireland has written a book about his life in the countryside and how his interest in living things has helped him weather difficult times and personal crises. He also has a blog. If you haven't heard about him do have a look.