Meles meles

On the 15th June I had the first sighting of what has become a resident badger family/grouping. I think there are two badgers that have been residing in a set near the big barn.

I'm not one of those people who usually get excited about sightings of vicious animals and was not at all pleased at the prospect of getting grunted at every time I went to water my tomatoes, but to be honest I have sort of got used to seeing and chatting to Lionel and his friend Lionelka. They don't seem to grunt anymore, just sort of scuttle under the pile of branches I cut for kindling with my friend Saw Beng Tee last year.

They don't seem to be damaging crops or gnashing their teeth at me, so perhaps Lionelka is not a female after all and it's just two lads shacked up together. I suppose this doesn't surprise me after all the male flowers on my courgette plants. Mabe I should rename Lionelka as Leonard or just opt for some ambiguous name like Lesley.

Anyhow over the last few weeks I've seen them or it (since they don't wear clothes or seem to have distinguising marks, or more likely I'm too scared to get up close) frequently and once, one of them did a little scuttling dance for me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Badger

Lucanus cervus

What an exciting day... I just went down to the vegetable garden to check on the plants after the rainstorm. On passing the well, I found a hungry snake shlucking a huge earthworm down its gullet. Quite a normal scenario really. The only thing that worried me was that the snake had a huge part of its tail missing. Memories from aggressive snakes in Lebanon came back when it started to hiss at me. Amazing what snakes can do with huge earthworms in their mouth.

Past the snake I viewed the progress of my vegetables. All fine. It was when I was viewing the sweetcorn that I notices a huge great beast appear at a canter towards me. It was black, neolithic and angry looking. Its pincers were huge and reddy and not things you wanted to snuggle up to.

I shot off at full speed, past the engorged snake and half eaten worm to the kitchen to find the camera.

It obviously was not a camera extrovert and exhibitionist and wasn't happy with me snapping away. When it started charging at me, all 8cm of it I backed off and found my computer and Internet connection to identify it. Apparently it was a male stag beetle.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucanus_cervus

Martes martes

The latest addition to the animal visits was the Pine Marten I spotted wobbling around in one of the mulberry trees. He, (I presume it was a he from his size) was causing a huge ruckus among the bird population, as he was either trying to make a meal out of the feasting birds or stealing their food.

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Martes_martes.html