30 Nights Wild, night 23

I walked down the path alongside the sett and was about to turn off into the clearing where I put food out, when I saw Boris rooting around on the edge of a bramble patch. I stood perfectly still as she moved gradually closer. Fortunately, she was still ten metres away when she realised I was there and trotted off into the brambles. I didn’t want her to get too close and then get a fright.

The usual suspects

As usual, Nicola was first out to the peanuts, then Nigel appeared, having walked down from the top end of the sett. Jeremy came out of the hole on my left and joined the cubs. Nigel finished first and went down the hole in front of me. A few seconds later his head appeared at the hole on my left. He’d taken a wrong turning and went back the way he’d come! The others soon cleaned up the peanuts and went off into the brambles. A few minutes later, the cubs were playing around the big oak tree in the centre of the sett and a game of chase followed, with Boris joining in. A cuckoo was still calling throughout the evening. As I left, I could hear the contact calls of Tawny owlets high up in the trees.


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