Evening visit to St. Nicholas Church and surrounding areas – 10th September 2020

Date: 10th September 2020

Time: from 7:30 p.m.

Weather: dry, clear/cloudy, dark, 16°C

This was my first evening visit since the excellent encounters with Red Foxes and Badgers on 30th August 2020.

As I arrived at the top of Church Hill, I noticed Jupiter shining brightly in the southern sky. However, it soon disappeared from view as cloud cover increased. Later in the evening, I identified Arcturus from the Sky Map app on my phone, one of the brightest stars in the night sky.

When I arrived at the site, I scattered some chopped apple, peanuts and dog biscuits at the usual location where the Badgers emerge.

Before settling down to wait for the Badgers, I found a location where I could watch the grassy strip that runs parallel to Church Hill down to St. Nicholas Lane, a normally reliable area to see Red Foxes. 

The first mammal that I saw was a large ginger cat walking slowly around the car park 😀.

At 7:50 p.m., I saw a Red Fox at the top of the grassy strip. I think this was possibly one of the cubs and it had a distinctive darkish tail with no white tip. It then ran down the grassy strip away from me where I think it joined another Red Fox at the bottom although it was difficult to see given that it was almost dark.

A few minutes later I saw 2 Red Foxes nearer to me at the top of the grassy strip and close to the church car park. Both of these had the characteristic white tip to the tail. Again, I think these were cubs. Therefore, there were at least 3 Red Foxes in the area and possibly more.

At 8:00 p.m., I moved to my location to wait for a Badger to emerge.

Whilst watching there was some noisy “geckering” of Red Fox cubs at 8:15 p.m. and 8:35 p.m. which I assumed were in the vicinity of the church car park or in the cemetery.

At 9:10 p.m., I noticed some movement in the darkness to the right of me and a Red Fox quickly appeared and did a Red Fox version of a “handbrake turn” when it evidently found or smelt the Badger buffet 😀. It stopped to eat for a few minutes and was totally oblivious of my presence about 25 feet away. However, something suddenly spooked it and it ran in to the hedge via the opening where the Badgers emerge. A few minutes later its desire for food overcame its fear and a head appeared at the opening although anxiety quickly returned and it moved back in to the hedge.

Unfortunately my 1.5 hour wait for the Badgers to emerge resulted in not even a brief sighting of the end of a black and white snout and I therefore left to return home at 9:30 p.m. I was going to scan various areas before doing so but, given that my torch batteries had evidently died, that was not possible.

With regard to birds, I heard several Robins both singing and alarm calling, heard a Blackbird briefly alarm calling and heard the raucous calling of Carrion Crows.

Species recorded during this visit were as follows (heard only records in italics):

Red Fox

Large ginger cat 😀

Robin

Blackbird

Carrion Crow

Site totals to date

Birds = 49

Mammals = 6

Butterflies = 20

Dragonflies and damselflies = 6

Reptiles = 1

Amphibians = 0

💚🦆 🦉🦋🐝🦊🦡🌼 🌳💚
Stay safe, stay well, stay strong, stay connected with nature