First, I'd like to share this short film with you. I've copied it from YouTube, where it was posted by the BBC Wildlife Trust, but it was filmed and sent to the BBC by a friend of mine. I'm not saying where it was filmed, for fear that government sharp-shooters get to hear of it, but it was somewhere in the deep, dark depths of the West Midlands concrete wilderness.
So there's hope that even if the government stupidly persist in killing one of our oldest native species, despite very little evidence that doing so will stop the spread of TB in cattle, badgers will simply join foxes in our backgardens. This one already co-exists with a family of foxes and several cats.
And then there's this lad:-
Not the best photo, I admit. He now has a frost nibbled maple leaf in his crown - an English maple, Joan, sorry - and oak leaves sprouting from the corners of his mouth in best Green Man style. A bird of a species unknown to science has built a nest against his right cheek. There will be eggs in it, but at the moment the glue's still drying and I don't want to add extra weight.
I spend as much time looking at him and thinking as I do adding anything. I'm thinking: apple-blossom above the nest, and an apple against his left cheek, opposite the nest. Too obvious? Maybe. But then, the seasons are pretty obvious. Not much point trying to be original about them.
As soon as I get my hands on some paint - couldn't find any in my local poundstore, Madwippet - I'll add some colour, just to make it easier to tell what I'm doing.
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