We didn’t intend to feed peanuts to the badgers. Rather, we started doing it temporarily and have never stopped. It has now got to the point that, if we are not able to do it for a few nights on the trot, we arrange for someone else to come and do it for us. This is what has happened here – someone else has scattered the nuts and the badgers have noticed the lingering non-known human smell.

The foxes start gathering at least half an hour before the peanuts go out at dusk. They only have a small window before they get chased away by the badgers and so they need to be in position as soon as possible after the nuts have gone down. They wait patiently just the other side of the fence.

Once the badgers arrive, the remaining peanuts get hoovered up pretty quickly.

Should it ever rain again, then the badgers can go back to eating worms but I imagine that they are pretty hard to get hold of at the moment.

We seem to be having a very good butterfly year here in this heat. Gatekeepers and Common Blues are the butterflies of the moment right now. However, we also have a few of the exciting Walls:

Finally for now, a Magpie silhouetted against an impressive sky: