The Mole and the mole
Okay, okay. Yes, I know it was only yesterday that I said: "one thing I won't be doing... is talking too much about the wildlife itself" but it's proving quite tricky. Perhaps it's got something to do with being on a nature reserve...
Anyhow, I have just been given a tour of the farm at by its marketing manager, Mark Noble, and thought I'd let you in on a rather unusual sighting...
Mark and I were sitting in his 4x4 looking over one of the old gravel pits that has been turned into a lake, when he spotted something crossing the dirt track behind us. It was, he quickly concluded, a mole.
Now, this is interesting because only yesterday I searched the in the hope of finding a photo of a mole with which to decorate my blogs. And what did I find? Nothing! Nada! Diddlysquat! Zilch!
But then again, that's hardly surprising. Mark has worked here four and a half years but had never seen a mole above ground before. Martin Hughes-Games, one of the new presenters, says he has only ever made one definite sighting. Even Tim Scoones, the executive producer, has only seen one mole in his whole nature-loving life.
So naturally I didn't believe my guide when he said, from twenty metres away, looking in his rear view mirror, that the black furry sausage ambling its way across the road was a mole. More likely, I thought, it was just an unusually-dark abnormally-large tail-less mutant vole. ? ? What's a first letter between friends?
However, when we got out of the car and reached the little critter, it was exactly what Mark had said it was - a mole. Hurrah, I though, another good omen!
But while Mark had been able to identify it from one glimpse in his rear view mirror the mole itself obviously couldn't see us for toffee. He just continued on his merry way - without rushing - until he reached the safety of the verge where he half-hid himself in the cleaver leaves.
I considered touching his beautiful coat but Mark warned me against it: "They're so blind," he said, "that biting is their default response to being touched." Despite being a mole myself, I decided not to...
A moment later, as I wondered where I had left my camera, the mole - about six inches long - started to dig. Fifteen seconds later he was gone, leaving nothing but the mouth of a hole and a tongue of fresh earth to remember him by.
A one day, a mole the next. With sightings like that I'm beginning to wonder whether Chris Packham should bother unpacking. Presumably, it's only a matter of time before I'm presenting my own series...
Unless, of course, two good omens cancel themselves out and actually make a bad omen. Mind you, two wrongs don't make a right, so that is comforting. But then, three lefts do make a right, so now I'm all confused again...
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