Life of a Chalkstream: Can badgers swim?

Life on a Chalkstream

Greetings!

The answer is badly. It was late at night last week when a huge splash, followed by frantic scrambling and sploshing emanated from the mill pond below my bedroom window. I knew at once it was something out of the ordinary. Otters enter the water with a ‘plop’ followed by silence, but this sounded more like a dog leaping in and since I do not have a dog it demanded a look.

At first all I saw was the stirred-up water until my torch beam picked out this huge, I assumed, otter as it dragged itself, with much commotion, through the reed bed onto the bank. But rather than galloping off, with that strange, back arching run typical of otters, this bedraggled creature seemed totally nonplussed, disorientated and unsure what to do next. I must admit I was baffled by the wet, slick fur. It was too big to be an otter, and it was certainly not a deer, dog or fox. But then it turned around, the white striped face explaining all, its eyes following my torch beam until it shook itself and ran off into the darkness.

Note claws more suited to digging than swimming!

We definitely have plenty of badger visits at the moment though whether it is one badger or more I cannot tell. However, what I do know is that they are snuffling up fallen fruit but most of all digging up the ground in search of their favoured food, wasp nests. Every morning there are scrapes aplenty and we had a missive from our neighbours, the church, to warn parishioners of unexpected holes around the graveyard. My guess is that this particular badger was roaming around the grounds and, since badgers have notoriously bad eyesight, fell off the bridge or walked straight off the bank edge into the water.

A sad end to a mighty eel

Talking about favoured foods, on the morning after the badger swim the night before, our river keeper Charley appeared with this headless eel, found in the stream.

In all my years this is by far the largest eel I have seen, alive or dead at The Mill. In fact, we all felt sort of sad for at something close to 30 inches long, with a thick, healthy body, this eel must have been in the region of 25 years old. about to start the 4,000 mile, one year return journey to the place of his birth, the Sargasso Sea, to spawn.

I am not sure why the otter, for this is most certainly an otter kill, did not eat the whole eel. My guess, having seen an array of half eaten fish recently, is that it may be the mother teaching her pup to hunt and eat. But the eel was not entirely wasted as we had returned the corpse to the stream and the following morning it was gone. Otters are, despite a common belief to the contrary, lovers of carrion which allows for maximum reward for minimum effort.

A letter to our new Environment Secretary of State, Emma Reynolds

Dear Emma,

Welcome to the Department of Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs! I am pretty sure that when you started last week as a junior Treasury Minister you did not expect to end it with a seat around the Cabinet table, but such are the vicissitudes of a political life.

I am certain you were welcomed to your new office in the Seacole Building by a civil service team who were slick and practiced in briefing their new boss. And well they should be – you are their sixth Secretary of State in the past three years. I am sure they, like me, reviewed your CV to find out a bit more about you and what perhaps led the Prime Minister to pick you for this role.

Your predecessor Steve Reed often teased as ‘City Steve’ by his Opposition Shadow seemed to lack any rural or environmental hinterland to his life either parliamentary or personal. In truth, your background with government stints at the Treasury, work as a financial sector lobbyist and personal interests listed as running, playing football and enjoys pubs and going to the cinema suggest you are not too different to Reed. However, your constituency Wycombe, on the western outskirts of London in Buckinghamshire is a little bit greener than that of Reed’s Croydon, and even contains an excellent chalkstream in the River Wye, which is on the Fishing Breaks roster. You are welcome anytime.

Emma Reynolds MP

As to why the PM picked you my guess lies in your financial nous, what with all the many disaster scenarios that loom for Thames Water and that part of your brief in general. As to farming and rural affairs prepare to be love bombed by your next-door neighbours on Marsham Street, the National Farmers Union. Have a flick though the Princess of Wales style book for that sophisticated, country look for you will inevitably be guest of honour at the Royal Agricultural Shows, will make the keynote speech at the NFU annual conference and have a photoshoot with the cuddly, acceptable face of farming Kaleb Cooper (no relation) of Clarkson’s Farm fame. Farmers will, of course, treat you with a certain reserve as you were part of the Treasury team that has changed the tax rules for farming.

My advice? Treat the whining and whinging from both water industry and the farming industry with equal disdain. Both want maximum returns for minimum environmental oversight or cost. Remember two thirds of all river pollution is caused by these two industries combined, with farming the slightly worse offender. My wish? That you take up the opportunity offered to Steve Reed by the Cunliffe Report to relieve the Environment Agency, Natural England plus any other quango with a finger in the pie of all oversight for water quality, creating a new agency that has no concern for cost but simply a brief to deliver pure water, pursuing polluters of all stripes until they conform to the standards that will bring back rivers in which nature thrives and humans can safely swim.

The Music Temple on the lake at West Wycombe Park fed by the Buckinghamshire River Wye

That was the month that was August

Well, it finally rained at the end of August not that it made much difference to the final data for the month. The wettest region was the South-west at 59% of average monthly rainfall with the Central and East regions tying as the driest at 30%. September has started well, with over a quarter of monthly rain arriving in the first two days but we have a way to go to catch up on the current deficit of 3 inches on annual rainfall of 39 inches.

Rivers-wise the limestone rivers such at the Gloucestershire Coln and the Derbyshire Dove are really suffering, as are the headwaters of all the major chalkstreams, plus standalone smaller rivers such as the Meon in East Hampshire or the Piddle in Dorset. However, lower down the systems you would be hard pushed to detect evidence of a drought if you were coming at the rivers for the first time.

Well done to our monthly feedback draw winner who in August was Jarvis Humby, fishing at School Farm on the River Dun. I hope the flies bring you better luck next time, Jarvis!