Turtle & Seahorse take on the 2.6 Challenge on behalf of the Mammal Society

It seemed like a good idea – greatly inspired by Mammal Society Council colleagues I wanted to take on the 2.6 Challenge to try and raise some cash, and perhaps help build awareness of British mammals in general. My two daughters have just turned 2 and just turned 6 – so what could be better? 26 different species of British Mammal, in 26 weeks (the end coinciding with National Mammal week), greatly ‘aided’ by a 2 and 6-year-old for the 2.6 Challenge. After all, in these unprecedented times of lockdown, what else is there to do on our local patch?

Our first species was quite an easy one. Earlier in the month a badger had very unexpectedly popped up in the garden after I disturbed its’ slumber while rooting around behind our shed. The girls were in the paddling pool so literally got front-side seats and started calling to me to say there was a badger in the garden. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous – we are surrounded by urban gardens, roads and a railway line. Back to the drawing board with the kids to up the ante of mammal identification’ so I thought, as I navigated my way back around the shed into the sunshine. Ok, so don’t judge your offspring’s’ ID skills so harshly – they were in fact 100% correct, and the badger duly disappeared down a blind access between our house and next door and dug it’s head into the soil. To achieve this it negotiated the builders debris which had lain untouched since work was rapidly stopped back in March.

The badger was still there the following morning, so I called out the Oxfordshire Badger Group who came and collected it, prior to taking to Tiggywinkles. However, early last week I had a call to say the young female was fit for release and would be coming back to the garden – given we have no idea where the badger originated from this was the best place for release, and a great start to our mammal count, and Turtle especially relished seeing it up close and personal. According to the two ladies who came to undertake the release the badger was a young female who had been named Caroline - not a name I'd have chosen personally - surely Beth or Bob would have been more fitting?

More information on badgers can be found here

British mammal tally: 1

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