The hills rang with birdsong as I went to meet the badgers. An hour before sunset I reached my destination: a cherry tree leaning over an old wooden gate. Bike left beneath the blossoming cherry, I climbed over the padlocked gate and followed the badger path up the grassy hillside to the edge of the woods where the sett lay – a scattering of huge holes in an ancient hawthorn thicket. I’ve often visited this sett in the daytime (from the road you can see the cascades of sandy soil, freshly excavated by the digging animals), but I’d never paid a call in the evening when the inhabitants begin to stir.