Badger

Review also includes:

Fox, 978-0750241656

‘In the summer, a badger can eat 700 worms in a single night’ avers the author in one of the many ‘unusual fact’ boxes that pervade his books. Foxes eat worms, too, though less avidly and both animals despite being ‘top predators’ with no natural enemies are surprisingly omnivorous. The progressive urbanisation of foxes has been well documented for many years now, but the increase in the rural badger population has been less publicised – and probably most effectively by a growing number of roadside badger-bodies.

Leach’s introductions to these two creatures are properly professional in approach. Each takes us from its subject’s infancy through habitat, feeding, reproduction, threats to survival and spotter-clues. As the author is a professional photographer and has both foxes and badgers ‘in his Shropshire garden’, high quality photographs illustrate his text, which is further salted by the aforementioned ‘unusual fact’ boxes. The result is a pair of excellent introductions to two creatures about whom, despite their ‘household word’ status, the man on the Clapham omnibus still knows but little and for whom foxes and badgers on the Common are a distinct possibility.