OUT WITH THE BEDDING, NEVER MIND THE MOUSE... (THE BADGERS AT TEMPLE BALSALL...)

 Out With The Bedding, Never Mind The Mouse…

Discarded bedding had been dragged clear of a sett.

It lay strewn across scored soil,

Metres from a void’s gawping mouth.

Eight badgers then showed to probe for food, 

Even to drink water from a plastic bowl,

As the copse faded into a dullness of pre-rain, 

Beneath a late summer canopy, still green, still wet. 

Quite suddenly though, as gulls cried, embroiled

In a late evening scavenge with screams uncouth, 

As they gleaned in fields for morsels of food,

Out of a slit in the earth, a tiny hole,

A mouse escaped, dashing in its disdain,

Fear and panic into a dugout, too small for a sett… 

Pete Ray

6th September 2022

A dull evening at Temple Balsall but the feeding badgers, all but one, ignored the noisy gulls and also the mouse.

It exited from a slit at the base of an oak tree next to me, barging into my plastic food container, before rushing into another hole, a metre or so away. 

It must have become aware of human presence but had reached the point of no return…