I was making a cuppa and looked out of the window at the falling snow. I noticed a track in the snow that hadn’t been there a half hour earlier when I had been out looking for a spade. I followed the track to see something that I thought was  a cat at the base of the bird feeder.

Assuming it was probably the cat that has taken to using our carport as its litter tray, I tapped on the window. When the ‘cat’ didn’t react I took another look and noticed a long black and white snout attached to a dumpy grey body. There was a badger in our garden! I shouted excitedly to Damae that she should take a look in the garden and grabbed my camera. By the time I had opened the back door the badger had ambled towards the woodpile where some old bird food lay under the snow.

Bernt the badger having his breakfast

‘Bernt’ (or maybe Beate) snuffled around in the snow for a few minutes quite unaffected by the camera’s flash. When he was done with his breakfast, he ambled slowly off to the edge of the garden and headed on downhill.

Later on I took a picture of the tracks that ‘Bernt’ had made in the snow. Just so you know what badger tracks in fresh snow look like.

The only evidence pointing to Bernt the badger’s nocturnal visit.