Toft Wood After the Snow

Yesterday, as soon as the sun was high enough to thaw the icy bit of Miller's Road for walking, I headed down to Toft Wood with my camera. There was a combination of a light layer of snow on the grounds and trees augmented by frost in the damper parts by the Bourn Brook - a very magical look with the reds of the berries and autumn oak leaves. After half an hour exploring, I headed out of the wood and round to the allotments via the Badger Sett. Very pleased to see plenty of characteristic very broad flat badger footprints at the entrance to the hole (with Rabbit and Pheasant)

Destruction of Local Wildlife Habitats

It took me several days before I could do my 'daily' walk around the footpath in Toft that goes along the Mill Lane Drift down the side of the allotments and back along the stream into Toft Wood as I had heard the large machinery at work earlier and feared for the worst. 

We no longer have a stream - just a V-shaped deep drainage ditch and the Badgers and hedgerow birds (including Whitethroats, Dunnocks, Wrens and Blackbirds) have lost a valuable breeding habitat. 

Tracks and Trails

With all the heavy rain over the last few weeks, all the paths are muddy around us. One upside is the visibility of animal tracks, even more so in last week's snow.  We have a Badger Sett that I walk past most days - the first two images show hind and fore paw prints. The tracks clearly lead from the Sett into Toft Wood and across. Badgers are protected by the Badgers Act 1992 which prevents injury to and the disturbance of badgers. Land owners must not disturb a badger or its sett without obtaining a licence but with all the clearing going on of the banks of the Brook, fingers crossed that this is upheld.

The other tracks are Muntjac, Fox (two photos), Dog and Rabbit