The Badger lay on the roadside verge. Snout tucked under paws, back arched comfortably, he seemed to be sleeping. When I got close, I saw his eyes were open but lifeless. A trick of death had gentled the snarling jaw to a smile. The car must have hit him in the night. Primroses rose on the bank behind him. A queen bumble bee, freshly woken from winter, buzzed by. I was still standing there when the sun suddenly came out. The badger’s black and white fur was even more beautiful close up. These markings are designed to deter attackers, but they couldn’t deter the fatal bumper of the four-wheel drives that rumble along our narrow lanes like tanks. A bad time to die; his February-born cubs would not yet have left the sett’s birthing chambers; would not yet have seen a sun se