Caution - Badger crossing
When I'm driving around I often, at least once a week, see badgers lying dead at the side of the road. I've had deer leap out in front of me, rabbits stand and stare at my approaching headlights but I've never seen a live badger, until last night. Hubby is away on one of his golfing jollies and Eldest daughters partner, also a golf fanatic, has gone with him, so last night daughter and I spent a girlie night in at her place, eating chocolates and watching 'Lost in Translation'. It was certainly lost on me. To be fair Mother and daughter watching a film is not terribly condusive to an indepth understanding. There was much chat, relationships were analysed, new bathrooms planned and, obviously, her pregnancy featured strongly in the nattering. After Parky I took my leave and started driving the mile and a half home. I had debated walking to her place but as most of it is along unlit, wooded roads I took the easy way out and decided to drive. Half way home there it was, a badger, in the middle of the road just after a bend. I slammed my brakes on, the contents of my handbag distributed themselves in my passenger footwell, and I stopped. I sat there whilst this badger plodded slowly across the road, it was in no hurry, it couldn't care that a car was sittting a few feet away from it. I wonder, are they deaf, or hard of hearing? No wonder so many of them meet their maker on the roads if they all behave as nonchalantly as this one. Of I went again, took a sharp right-hand turn and there running down my side of the road, was a young fox. At least this example of native wildlife seemed preturbed to have a car following it, but it still didn't shoot off into the hedge until it had found a spot it liked the look of. Two, I kept thinking, where's the third? As a result I drove the rest of the way at a snails pace, convinced that at any moment some furry creature was going to lunge, suicidaly, at my assassin of a car. It didn't. In future, when I see a deceased badger at the side of the road, I will not be so quick to blame a reckless driver, badgers do need to move more quickly and, develop a fear of cars.
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(12.9.04 12:23) The alternative would be to fit them all with trunks. After all you never see elephants as roadkill. Or leopard skins! They never get run over .... |
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(13.9.04 18:39) I have hit (and killed, sorry) a badger around the hills in Kineton. In my defence this was when I used to work as a DJ and therefore used to drive home at 3am or thereabouts, very tired, and it was a very heavily wooded area. The exhaust system of my car was destroyed and the badger was killed outright. "He" was just sitting in the middle of the road around a bend and in the dappled moonlight I didn't see him until it was too late poor sod. It's only when you see one up close you realise how solid they are and what massive 'bear' feet they have. |