Latest news with #badger
BBC News
7 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Kidderminster park revamp set to begin after badger delays
A £3m revamp of a park is to start after it was hit by a series of delays including the discovery of several badger Forest District Council said work on Kidderminster's Brinton Park in Worcestershire would start this budget includes £2.4m in lottery cash but the authority's cabinet will be asked to release an extra £460,000 on 10 June to make sure the scheme remains on will start with the construction of a new artificial badger sett to protect local wildlife. The council said a key part of the improvements included replacing the aging Sons of Rest pavilion at the park, which was found to be in a worse condition than engineers told the council it needs to be demolished and rebuilt, a spokesperson for the authority added, with an application to be considered at the next available planning committee new pavilion would reflect the historic character of the original and include a new café and terrace overlooking an ornamental pond, they Tracey Onslow said the park was one of the area's most popular green said the improvements would "not only protect and improve the park's natural beauty and heritage, it will also create welcoming new spaces for everyone to enjoy".Work will start with the construction of the new sett and demolition of the pavilion would follow shortly afterwards, if the application was approved, the spokesperson said. Follow BBC Hereford & Worcester on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
Irish Times
22-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
A tough duel but Cavan find a different way to slay that badger
On the week that Cavan last beat Mayo in the championship, a man from Gowna fought a badger. I'm serious – it even made the Anglo-Celt newspaper. 'Mr John Cullen, Pottle, Gowna, had a rather exciting experience with a badger, which he attacked with a hayfork, the animal retaliating viciously,' the report read. 'After a hard fight for over half an hour, Mr Cullen, fearing the worst, called on his son to bring him a gun, with which he shot the badger. 'Mr Cullen says it was the toughest duel he ever had.' The newspaper was dated September 25th, 1948. Cavan beat Mayo in the All-Ireland final on September 26th – and not again until last Sunday, May 18th, 2025 . READ MORE Now, Cullen v the Badger (what would Don King have called this? Death in the Sett? Full Throttle in Pottle?) prompts some questions, the obvious one being why the bold Cullen waited so long to change his tactical approach. The badger, perhaps working behind the jab, cutting off the ring, clearly had the upper hand – but why did his, presumably, two-legged foe leave it until he was 'fearing the worst' before doing what he surely should have done in the first place? I like to think that coming from Gowna, maybe he was a football man, which would make sense because, down through all the years and all the cursed days, Cavan teams have never made things easy on themselves, either. A few weeks back in Omagh, for the umpteenth time, they reached a crossroads, saw the sign for Gung Ho and took the other road . Let's be honest, it was hard to see the way back and the supporters reacted accordingly; a vanishingly small crowd made the trip to MacHale Park. 'That cliche about travelling in hope rather than expectation would have been true had they travelled at all,' wrote Conor McKeon, damningly, in Monday's Irish Independent. 'The Cavan players loitered in the middle of the pitch and drank in the sun with the few family and supporters who had made it. It looked more like a weekend neighbourhood summer soirée than a raucous celebration for a landmark championship win.' [ Ponderous Mayo find out how dangerous it is to overthink their gameplan in the new-rules era Opens in new window ] 'Landmark' was an apt word though, because wherever this team's journey takes them, this game will be referenced − the day Cavan took a championship scalp really worth taking. Should Cavan go on to do something special, Castlebar will be the day it started. Should they not, Castlebar will be the day it ended. Either way, it's a day that will be referenced for years to come. Yes, Mayo were poor but that's by the by. This was a win against a recognised top team, a win Ray Galligan admitted last week his team were desperately seeking to 'change the landscape of how they're viewed'. They did that; they earned respect. There was a moment towards the end of the match which summed up Cavan's approach, when Mayo's dashing forward, Ryan O'Donoghue, was clattered by a bone-shaking, fair challenge from Killian 'The Gunner' Brady. Reeling, the brilliant Belmullet man, who had been haunted by Niall Carolan all day, offloaded the ball instantly but his thoughts were clearly scrambled. The team-mate O'Donoghue thought was there, was not; maybe, it was an apparition of sorts, induced by a heavy hit. The unfortunate O'Donoghue's handpass went straight to a Cavan man and they raced up the field and scored. It was unusual to see a pass go so wildly astray at that level of football but then, everything about this match was; it just felt like that kind of day, a day when ghosts were banished. (Centrefield in 1948, incidentally, was a forebear of Brady's, Phil 'The Gunner', cut, they say, from the same cloth.) Paddy Durcan of Mayo and Cavan's Dara McVeety get to grips with each other during Sunday's match at MacHale Park. Photograph: James Lawlor/Inpho Seventy-seven years is a long time. The people were different back then, closer to the land maybe (a man might, I don't know, find himself fighting a badger of an evening, for example). 'A kite flying high over the pitch was decked out with the Mayo colours while a rabbit in the same garb was released shortly before the start,' the report on these pages of the 1948 final recorded matter-of-factly, as if this wasn't the daftest carry-on imaginable. 'After nibbling at the grass, it seemed stage struck and was picked up by a steward. Then out dashed a hare dressed in blue for Cavan. It ran round briskly whilst the crowd cheered. It, too, was picked up and the parade started.' A crowd of 75,000 attended that game, with a reported 25,000 unable to gain admittance. 'The crowd were so dense – a swaying mass of humanity – that the situation was positively dangerous for old or delicate individuals. Many people fainted...' the report reckoned. In the Market Square on the Tuesday after the final, Cavan chairman Patsy Lynch spoke to the masses. 'In the victory celebrations tonight, we should not let the opportunity pass without mentioning our traditional friends, the Gaels of Mayo,' he proclaimed. 'At any time that a Cavan team appeared in Mayo, they were accorded a great reception and they counted them among their greatest friends.' And it's true, there is an affinity between the counties, more so than others a similar distance away. Why that is, I don't know. Maybe the common kinship is built on a latent recognition that well, if you're in this, get out of it while you can or otherwise, it's going to hurt. It's when you least expect it, though, that both teams can surprise you. Witness Mayo scoring own goals and missing penalties in All-Ireland finals, beating the greatest team of all time and losing next day out; remember Cavan winning the Ulster Championship a month after being relegated to Division 3 – and then going to Division 4 before the ribbons had been cut from the cup. All of this is in the last five years alone. So, I headed west torn between dangerously unfounded optimism in the heart and a faint sense of dread in the head. I gave a lift to two young women of my acquaintance and on the drive, football wasn't mentioned, not once – and having covered this same fixture last year and the recent one in Healy Park, I must say I was quite happy about that state of affairs. [ Conor McManus: The West's a wake but it's resurrection time for Dublin Opens in new window ] We reached Castlebar and my passengers disembarked, laden with camping gear, heading further west still to Achill. I considered joining them and rued that I couldn't. To the stadium, a couple of familiar faces outside but not many. 'Big ask, now,' muttered one Cavanman who knows his football better than most, better than me, anyway. Into the lift, up to the press box. 'Any chance?' asked one wizened scribe. 'I wouldn't back us,' I admitted, secretly still hoping we would give it a good rattle but too cowardly to say it aloud in front of the grown-ups. And early on, yes, it was clear there was something different about Cavan – they were up for this one. But bodies started to fall and men looked leggy and when Mayo went in at half-time three points up, without having done anything really of note, you knew, just knew, it was going to be one of those days. And then, like the man from Pottle, God rest him, Cavan said, to hell with this messing around, sent for the shotgun and blasted all before them. A 'rather exciting experience', indeed. On the way home, I stopped in O'Connor's of Tulsk, a shop and pub along the roadside. The sun was setting but there was still a warmth in the air. My phone hadn't stopped ringing and I found myself giddy. Across the shop counter, the bar was hopping; I heard a man say 'some win for Cavan' and for the second time in a few hours, I thought of abandoning all plans and joining in. But I had reports to write, more's the pity, of discarded pitchforks and slain badgers and famous wins and generations of the same family, 77 years apart, in the same colours, fighting the same fight. That's the beauty of it and that's why, despite it all, we love it. On I went. Paul Fitzpatrick is the sports editor of the Anglo-Celt newspaper, where this column originally appeared as the weekly Cavanman's Diary
Irish Times
17-05-2025
- General
- Irish Times
Live near a town? Got food or smelly shoes? Foxes and badgers may pay you a visit
I've taken some images of a badger and fox who visit our garden in south county Dublin. Here is a picture of them both here at the same time. Jennifer O'Neill, Dublin Foxes are now more abundant in urban areas than in the countryside. The average urban fox territory can be as low as 20 hectares, whereas it can be up to a 100 hectares in rural areas. They are common visitors to gardens, where they will scavenge on any food they can find, even smelly shoes left outside. Badgers are not as frequently seen but they do visit gardens with lawns. They dig holes to catch earthworms, which can form up to 40 per cent of their diet. Indian meal moth, supplied by Claire Hearty We have had an ongoing issue with these insects in our kitchen since just before Christmas. We would like to know what they are and how we can encourage them to leave our house. They fly around and also seem to have larvae. We have disinfected all cupboards, drawers and surfaces, to no avail. Claire Hearty This is an Indian meal moth, a species that attacks a wide variety of foodstuffs such as grains, dried fruit and nuts as well as pulses and spices. While native to tropical and subtropical regions, they have been around these parts since 1847. You need to inspect all your dried food stores, throw out any that are contaminated and keep the rest in sealed containers, not just the paper bags they came in. READ MORE long-tailed field mouse, supplied by Elaine Foxton While doing a clean-out of the garden shed in Ferns recently, I swept up this guy along with some clay that had fallen from under the lawnmower. At first I thought it was a mouse and then, on closer inspection, saw the very long tail and bushy whiskers. Can you enlighten me please? Elaine Foxton [ How can businesses change their business model to support biodiversity? Opens in new window ] It is a mouse – not a house mouse but the wee sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie that Robbie Burns found in his ploughed field in 1785: a long-tailed field mouse, Apodemus sylvatica. This native species has a tail that is longer than its body and long whiskers that are vital for finding its way in the dark. They count long grass pasture among their preferred habitat as well as hedgerows and field boundaries, so go handy with the lawnmower. Another reason to subscribe to no-mow-May. wolf's milk slime mould, supplied by Una Thompson I saw these little blobs on an old tree root in Dromore Wood in south Kerry. I think they may be known as wolf's milk. Una Thompson This is a slime mould, probably Lypogala terrestre, which is common throughout Killarney National Park, so no surprise that it would be in Dromore Wood as well. It has been called wolf's milk in English because they secrete an orange-pink substance, which people long ago thought was the colour of wolf's milk. Who knew? Slime moulds are classified as different organisms to fungi. They don't form a mass of hyphae in the wood substrate as fungi do but rather form masses of protoplasm, called plasmodia, which creep about engulfing particles of food. Bee-eater, supplied by Derek Brennan This bee-eater was around the parish of Bunbeg in Donegal during the first week of May. Derek Brennan (Donegal overseer of IWebs) This is the European bee-eater. These birds normally nest in southern Europe and north Africa and over-winter in southern Africa. They eat bees and other flying insects such as dragonflies, darting out from a perch to catch them in mid-air. Once they have their catch , they bash the bee or wasp against a branch to remove the sting and venom. This one has caught a large bumblebee. There are one or two sightings here most years. Please submit your nature query, observation, or photo, with a location, via or by email to weekend@
