Badger

In the Encounters in the Wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife.

With his inimitable passion and vision, he relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives.

Suddenly the boar's face was back, peering up from almost ground level beneath the lowest sweep of the spruce branches. Almost at once, the sow was right beside him. Then came the cubs. For perhaps ten seconds, no more, all four faces gleamed garishly out of the forest at me.

They looked like nothing so much as characters in a puppet theatre and an absurd image came into my head of the puppet master crouched behind them, dangling two puppet masks on strings from each hand.

In all my badger encounters, nothing has charmed me so utterly as those ten seconds.