h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Have you left food out?

No - I'm still thinking about it. Every time I think I will, I worry about messing with their diets and so on. I suppose a *little* wouldn't hurt.

It might be the rain keeping them away at the moment. If I were a badger out there with the weather the way it is, I'd have headed for high ground some time ago

There's also a cat hanging around recently. I don't think this cat has quite worked out how I'm able to tell the minute he or she has snuck up on the house, because this looks like one of those cats who is very proud of his or her stalking abilities. I lean out of the window and go "Shoo, I'm expecting badgers" and the cat looks up as if to ask "But how did you now I was here? Stealthy, I am!"

This cat has a bell, as you may have guessed.

I don't know if badgers would be deterred by rain or cats. Especially if they think the cats are intruding on their territory. Of course the cat might eat whatever you put out for the badgers. Weren't the badgers eating your trash? How much would you mess up their diet feeding them when they eat trash? Maybe you have some other rubbish you could feed them.

Oo, no, they weren't eating trash...

(Although there was a fox out there the other morning and he was certainly giving the bins the once over )

Apart from roughing up a flowerpot - which did have parsley growing in it, but they didn't seem to be too interested - I don't think they ate anything. Which isn't to say they weren't looking.

I suspect you're right about the cat, though - bound to be in there much quicker than the badgers...

There's quite a big area of woodland out the back of the house - that's 'big' in semi-urban British terms, you understand, which is basically not very big at all - and that must be where they're living. In a way, I'm reluctant to tempt them out into the garden (and in this area, they've probably got a choice of a couple of dozen gardens to wonder in to) because it at least preserves the illusion of 'wildness'. If they come, they come.

The other thing is that a group of four pretty big badgers suggests a mother and three nearly fully grown cubs (is that the right word for young badgers? Probably not). Since they're fairly solitary - I think - the family group will probably be breaking up and the three young ones going their own way. Perhaps that's what the trip signified.

"See this? This is a garden - you want to stay away from these. And see that? That's a flowerpot. *Doink, Bang, Crash* Don't take any crap from flowerpots."

I think I'll just be patient in the end

Oh, not eating trash. I thought they must be after trash for some reason. I bet they'll visit again sometime if they're living right there and breeding there. Maybe they're trying to familiarise themselves with your garden for some future purpose.

So I was re-reading the original badger entry to see what else I may have missed and found the word "kebabiverous" Does that mean that your urban wildlife eats kebabs?

>>some future purpose<< A badger plot?!

I don't think urban wildlife has much choice in the matter, not in the bit of London where I used to live (though there was a bit of parkland in the area). I did see a fox crossing the high street in the wee small hours of the morning on one occasion - and it had some sort of wrapper in its mouth: kebab, fish and chips, who knows?

The squirrels are the biggest difference, I think. Out here, they're not exactly nervous, but they will run away if you get too close. In London, especially in the parks where they're used to kindly old ladies with bags of nuts, they'll organise themselves into gangs and go looking for people to intimidate. "Oi, mister, give us a nut! Give us a nut or I'll do yer ankles! Kebab, eh? That'll do!"

I was with my brother, brother that is, t'other day. A really nice car went past us, something like a porsche or Speedster X2zero etc. Anyway, I said "God! that looked fast!" to which he straight faced replied "what were it? a squirrel?"

He gets badgered by squirrel remarks now

Well, they are pretty fast, urban squirrels...

I admire urban squirrels, but it's not like country squirrels. With country squirrels you think "Ah, Nutkin, cute" and they look back, for just an instant, to go "Yes, I am cute, aren't I?" before scampering away.

Urban squirrels don't scamper, the have it away on their toes. Urban squirrels try to stare you down. "I don't care what you think of me - and I'm 'avin' that." If you ever see an urban squirrel being cute out the front of the house, it's because his friend's round the back, nicking your video.

I live in front of some big ol' woods, so we've got squirrels in our garden all the time, the chased one away once then two of em came back as if they were looking for her!

I feel sorry for your - if the squirrels are looking for you, they WILL find you!

Only option is to pay them off ("and we're not talking a bag of nuts 'ere, missis - that's a nice watch"). Or pay a couple of other squirrels to act as some sort of feline bodyguard unit.

b a d g e r

That is so . Any recent sitings Trin?

I always get terribly excited when anything alive turns up at home. Mostly here its birds and hedgehogs. Frogs are the rare ones that get me really jumping up and down .

If you want to encourage the badgers, or even just support them, I bet there is informaiton on how to make your garden badger friendly. You don't have to feed them human food, but you could find out what they eat naturally.

Your neighbours might not appreciate it though I guess

Are you in the town or the country - I couldn't quite figure that out?

Still watching this space!

I'm on the edge of a town, so it's not exactly urban, but it's not exactly rural. As for the neighbours, they claim to have seen badgers too, but only *after* my sighting, so I suspect them of trying to keep up with the Joneses, badger-wise

Last night I heard a noise right beneath the window. So, I did the same thing I did last time, turned on the lights in the room next door, then came back to my room for a look. Something kicked the plastic watering-can, which is right below my window! Very excited now, I leaned out as far as I could but I still couldn't see anything - I therefore assumed there was at least one badger, maybe more, directly underneath the window where I couldn't see them, because there's a kind of thin lintel-thing in the way.

So, I left the light on and snuck downstairs to peek out of the ground floor window at where the badgers would be. Still too dark to make out anything, so I thought I'd risk it and flashed a torch in the exact space.

And this ginger cat slowly looked up at me and said "Wha? Whachoo lookin' at?"

Well, obviously the cat didn't actually say that, but it was that kind of attitude if you know what I mean.

So - no real badger updates, but I live in hope

Kea - I get very excited at hedgehogs too

Ach, false badger alarm!

Look what I found:
"If you would like to attract Badgers & Hedgehogs in to your garden then it is a good idea to water your garden late at night this will bring up worms & so on for the Badgers & Hedgehogs. For more on Badgers visit the www.nfbg.org.uk its a excellent site and can help with badger issues. "

From
http://quicksitebuilder.cnet.com/anthonydacko/bugs.htm

Oh Thanks! Watering the garden - I might just give that a go...

Poor hungry badgers and hedgehogs. If you see a hedgehog out during the day it's a bad sign - if means they are really hungry and getting desparate. That's a good time to start watering the garden. I put out low bowls of water sometimes too. We've had wickedly dry summers here the last few years.

I think using mulch on the garden and having lots of weeds or undergrowth helps too.

Kea - are your hedgehogs like European hedgehogs? Isn't there a big problem in NZ with introduced European species - rats especially - knocking off all the indigenous creatures?

(Have you ever read 'Last Chance to See' btw?)

"Lots of weeds or undergrowth" *Looks out of window& Yep - not a problem

Yaay weeds


Yep the hedgehogs are introduced. They good in urban and semi-rural areas, but apparently are a problem in the bush as they compete for food with the insect eating birds. Maybe they also eat bird eggs (although the ground birds have big eggs)? They eat frogs and skinks too I'd imagine.


Rats, stoats, ferrets, cats, possums, deer and tourists are the big problem introduced animals . I used to get excited when I met possums at home (I'm in a semi-rural area too), but now I try not to notice how cool they are in case I have to kill them. I used to be opposed to killing wild animals on principle, but now I know how much damage they are doing. We are still losing bird species here, some of them species that don't exist anywhere else

I still find it hard killing possums and stoats, but now I see humans as their natural predators here because they don't have any others.


I have Last Chance to See out from the library this week

Oh, I hope you like it: I'm sure you will - I've forgotten the name of the bird (?) he deals with in the New Zealand chapter, but that's my favourite bit (very funny but also very moving, exactly in line with what you say about species that don't exist anywhere else).

With most of those creatures, I can see, either why people would have taken them (cats) or how they might have made their own way there (definitely rats). But hedgehogs?

Mind you, they had a big problem with introduced hedgehogs in the Outer Hebrides recently - someone introduced them to Lewis and Harris (again, I don't really know why) and they caused havoc with the local birdlife. In the end, they had to have a cull, though animal rights groups tried to take as many back to the mainland as they could find.