I just took Morphy for his bedtime constitutional.
On the way home I saw a fox go through this gate
http://goo.gl/maps/w1z01which was also our chosen route.
Once round the far side of the church, I caught a brief glimpse of a pair of foxes cavorting in the planet-slaying floodlights that the C of E likes to use for night-time illumination of the church, just in case God can't find his way home on a Friday night. Almost immediately after the foxes disappeared, a badger entered the church yard by this gate.
http://goo.gl/maps/N5wgEMorphy and I stood stock still, quite close to the church buildings, and
meles meles, being unaware of our existence, bumbled towards us and didn't notice us until he was about four feet form Morphy's nose. The badger stopped and just looked at us for about 5 seconds. Morphy, interested, stood and wagged. Then the badger decided that we weren't really the sort of company he was after, turned away and disappeared somewhere off to our left.
Morphy's reaction was interesting. I'm pretty sure that, had it been a fox that close, he would have gone ballistic. I'm convinced that foxes deliberately wind dogs up. Badgers are far less provocative.
For my part, it's the closest I've been to a badger since one knocked me off my bike.