Last monday, at 8.40pm, when the moon had just risen over the hill to the east of us, that’s when I took the above photo. They were saying it was a ‘blue moon,’ but I take all this ‘wolf moon, blue moon, blood moon, half a lager moon’ stuff with a large pinch of salt, to be honest. All the years as I was growing up there were full moons every 28 days and that hasn’t really changed much has it. I mean when they say “oh, look, tonight the moon’s going to be bigger, redder, brighter, more cheesier (or whatever), you simply must rush out and see it” drivel, the moon looks the same to me. It’s always beautiful, and it’s always something that inspires awe. After all, it’s our planet’s sole satellite and even with the naked eye it’s astounding how well it reflects the light from the sun, which is on the opposite end of the sky.

Little did I know, though, as I stood admiring the brilliant moon, that later that same night I’d get the kind of treat that I’ve been looking out for for ages and not been able to fully record. I mentioned some time ago that we have badgers living in the close vicinity, but on the rare occasions when I’ve been privileged to see them, I hadn’t had my phone with me to capture the occasion. Last Monday, at well after midnight, as is my usual routine, I went outside at around 1.30am, having got up to mooch around because once again I wasn’t sleeping. Wandering around to the other side of the empty house next door, I heard the unmistakable sound of animal movement. The ‘house next door to the house next door’ has a tiled canopy around three sides and, at the furthest point behind the house, it becomes a carport, where we often park our car when the owner’s not in residence (with her permission, of course). On the top of the terracotta tiles there was the distinct sound of claws on baked clay, as it were.

‘Dammit,’ I thought, ‘sounds like we’ve got another stray dog or two on the prowl.’ The wall behind the house in question, which forms the side wall of the carport, borders on Yanni’s garden and orchard, he it is who lives behind us, and whose house is quite a lot higher than ours, owing to the fact the we live on a steep hillside. You can walk in one easy step from the roof of the carport to which I’m referring straight on to Yianni’s garden, as it’s that much higher than the driveway below. In the past there have been a couple of stray dogs hanging around the village on the odd occasion. They’re not dangerous and usually slope away from anyone who approaches them, tail between their legs. I simply don’t like the thought of them getting into our garden though, which also has an upper area on a level with the lowest part of Yanni’s, and is separated from his only by a rickety fence.

That part of Yanni’s ‘garden’ that’s immediately behind the driveway and carport of our furthest neighbour is rather overgrown, and shaded by a couple of not often tended trees. One’s an olive, which he hasn’t harvested for a number of years, and the other (well, the other two, to be precise) are almonds. He doesn’t look after that area much because it’s so steep, and so he kind of leaves it ‘natural’ which I suppose is good for a lot of the local insect life and other indigenous wildlife and, since it doesn’t cause us any bother, we’re all OK with that. TBH, we benefit from the almonds when it’s time to harvest them, since we can either pick some by reaching straight from our neighbour’s roof, or that of the carport, or by scavenging all the fallers, so that’s a bonus, when you consider how much almonds cost in the shops.

Just for once, I actually had my phone in my shorts pocket, and a jolly good job too, because once the creature that was making the noise came into view, I was overjoyed to see that it wasn’t a stray dog at all, no, it was an adult badger, not five metres from where I was standing. I watched it as it came right down to the edge of the carport roof, took a look at the eight-foot drop, and then strode off into Yanni’s garden, and up the slope towards his house. He chucks a lot of vegetable material and old leftovers out from his terrace for the stray cats, so I imagined that the badger was making its way up there to see what was about. Also, there’s a self-seeded pomegranate tree there too, which has been dropping fruit for a while, so maybe badgers are partial to a pomegranate or two, I don’t know. [Quick bit of Googling here]… Aha, I see that badgers will eat just about anything, see this post.

As I watched badger number one, another one came into view too. I was watching a pair!! Talk about excited. I haven’t been so excited since the last time… Well, I’ll just leave it there, shall I? Anyway, I pointed my modest mobile phone at the one I could see best and this was what I got…

The animal was so close that I could hear it chomping away at whatever it was eating. I also attempted a video, but the light’s nowhere near as good, but I’ll post it here anyway, because if you look closely enough (probably best to go full-screen) you will be able to see its head around centre of shot, and you can hear it munching too..

Of course, I’ve been out there every night since, and so far they’ve not shown up again. But even if I don’t get to see them for some time, this was so exciting that it’ll last me for a while. I’ve also had an excellent view of the local barn owl this past week or so too, sitting as it was, atop a wooden post just across the road from our neighbours Angla’i’a and Giorgo, also in the wee small hours. Didn’t get any shots or video though, sorry. I get the impression that nocturnal wildlife around here isn’t too timid in the presence of humans, because they so seldom see us.

I’ll just close out this one with a couple more shots from the past few days. We had to get the pump replaced on our car’s screen washer this week and, while we sat and waited as the auto electrician fitted the new part, I took this one below of a kitten making a pretty good attempt at camouflage on the bonnet (hood, folks) of a car that evidently hasn’t been anywhere (nor is likely to) for probably a few years now…

Below are two shots taken at 2.20am during another of my night time walks around the village perimeter…

Finally, the one below was taken at the newly refurbished café/bar Menam, at Pachi Ammos this very morning…

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