Badgers in trees – perhaps

Please pass on my thanks to Mat Manning for his tips on using a bait station for controlling grey squirrels with an air rifle (Humane gains on grain, 15 August). They have proved to be highly effective this summer. It is very enjoyable, too, to watch a variety of birds come and go while waiting for a shot.

This month the peanuts started to go down at an alarming rate. A trail camera showed why — this badger had no trouble climbing 5ft up into a spiky hawthorn. Brock is now on a diet while I rethink the position of the bait box. My fear, though, is that now he has the taste for nuts, will he be content going back to dining on earthworms and windfalls, or will he start foraging higher up in the trees this autumn? I don’t fancy getting flattened by an obese badger falling off a branch and my neck is getting stiff from constantly looking up when I walk through the woods.

That heady mix of worms and crab apples is bad enough at this time of year — when the dog surreptitiously goes rolling in fruity badger poo — without it also raining down from above. Now I’m not sure if I should swap my tweed cap for a hard hat, or an umbrella. Perhaps this is happening elsewhere too.

Mat, you could go down in history for triggering one of those Darwin moments, when badgers evolved into tree dwellers.

A Beech, Shropshire As a subscriber, I receive my magazine every week in the post in a plastic bag. As a hunter and conservationist, like many others, I am doing my bit to protect and improve the declining health of our planet. Could Shooting Times follow suit with other magazines and deliver their magazine in a paper envelope in an effort to reduce single-use plastic?

B. henderson, Newcastle

the editor responds: I have been pushing this point with our publishers for some time and they have told me that it is something they are considering. My mother subscribes to a gardening magazine. The packaging it comes in turns into a bag for a compost bin. I would like to follow suit. Getting your gundog ready for the pheasants. What does the season hold for woodcock and when should you shoot them?

... AND Much MORE!

Shooting times & Country magazine • 13

Caught on camera, the climbing badger