Get Ready, Get Sett ....

I've never seen a badger - well not close too or unsquashed! So I leapt at the opportunity to visit the Suffolk Wildlife Trust badger hide at the suggestion of someone I know on Twitter who has been there before.

I drove straight from work near Norwich down to Stowmarket and met my twitpal at her house. Then she drove us to the hide, which is tucked well away in the Suffolk countryside.

Another couple of people were already waiting in the car park and we soon walked up to the hide, put out some peanuts and settled down on the comfy sofas to wait in front of the large windows.

You are requested not to take photos of the badgers to minimise disturbance but I thought it was safe to take a picture of the view from the hide before any badgers put in an appearance.

It's a pretty magical place as you can see. The logbook in the hide indicated that adults and cubs had been seen in the past few days.

About 10 minutes after we arrived I spotted movement down at the bottom of the track on the right, behind the stump. Was it a badger? Yes, it was. It made it's way up the track towards the area in front of the hide and, for the next 40 minutes, proceeded to hoover up peanuts at an alarming rate!

Disappointingly no other badgers put in an appearance and our lone badger disappeared back down the track, which is probably where the others were.

We waited another hour or so to no avail but seeing a badger at close quarters for 40 minutes was pretty special I have to say. As night began to fall a Song Thrush serenaded us and our final sighting was a giant rabbit in the gloom. Actually, I thought it was a Wallaby............!!