43rd: Tewin Orchard and Hopkyns Wood – Herts and Middlesex

There is going to be a very different vibe to this post as it’s as much about people as it is about what we saw at the reserve. Although, that was incredible, so more on that later.

I owe a huge debt of thanks to many people here. Firstly, to Jess, Hayley and Chris, for suggesting and arranging our visit, we would never have even known about this place otherwise.

Special thanks really have to go to Michael and Marcella, but a bit of background is needed to allow me to explain.

Me with the wonderful Michael

Given that the logo of most of the Wildlife Trusts is a badger, I really wanted to see some badgers on a Wildlife Trust reserve, and this was proving harder than you might think. I’m no wildlife expert and I’ve never managed to master the field craft needed to learn animal behaviour well enough to enable close encounters. Therefore, I asked if there was any trust that could help out and Jess came up trumps. She put me in contact with Hayley, from Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, who have a good relationship with the local Badger Group, who run the Audrey Randall Hide at Tewin Orchard and Hopkyns Wood.

Michael has been feeding badgers here, every day, for over 20 years and it is thanks to him that we had the experience we had. So, thank you very much indeed Michael.

We drove up to the hide one evening and arrived to be met by Marcella, who’s family name is on the hide. So, thank you Marcella for your wonderful hospitality and for the hide itself! We also discovered, upon arrival, that Michael is a huge expert on apples and has written, and illustrated, a book on many hundreds of the different types of UK apples. The orchard is fabulous and is a fantastic habitat in its own right. However, it was getting late, and we made our way quickly to the hide, to wait to see if the badgers would arrive.

Arrive they did and we spent the next 2 hours or so watching up to 20 badgers coming to feed.

They are so full of character, and we were able to get so close to them that it was a truly magical time that we will never forget and will certainly inspire at least 1 piece of art!