GETTING THE WIND UP...: BADGER WATCHING...

 Getting The Wind Up…

Jerky appearance,

Movements fragmented

Like within a zoetrope,

With rapid, frisky fret. 

And the wind was up…

Expressions askance,

Sniffing, as if demented,

Checking the slope

From their hidden sett.

And the wind had got up…

Faltering, flinching,

Halting to assess

The scents and sounds

Within the copse, replete.

For the wind was up…

Skittering, hunching,

Scavenging to access

Any nuts on the ground,

Then stuttering in retreat.

For the wind had got up…

Thus the badgers slipped away,

Back to their torpor and tunnels,

As dusk stole the day

And the wind gusted in arboreal funnels…   

Pete Ray

29th June 2021 

Badgers at Temple Balsall, unsure, yet hungry, although clearly concerned and harassed by a noisy wind. 

Nevertheless they were willing to forage outside their sett to feed on peanuts, despite their uneasiness, pre-dusk…