A cat relaxing on a hot tin roof.			Land based Being that this is Britain and rurally fairly well tamed for agriculture, the kind of large mammals that once were here are long gone. Hunted to extinction so they no longer pose a threat to kept livestock. However, things are never as simple as they seem. I know of woodland where wild boar roam freely, I have heard plans to reintroduce wolves, and there have been persistent sightings of large cats over the years so I must stay open to possibilities. Badgers are about the commonest seen larger mammals, they can often be found playing around near the wood. The rabbit population ebbs and flows like a tide, but then I dare say the removal of thousands of miles of hedges in Britain didn't help their plight. We see hares every year, and of course foxes. Now there's a smart opportunist. Tales of the fox's cunning are legendary and rightly so. We occasionally lose a duck or a chicken to the fox but that's what happens if you free range your poultry. The real murderous killers are the polecats and mink. If they get into your chicken coup they kill everything just to stop the panic. Weasles and stoats are much smaller, but still quite capable. We have otters down on the river, a brilliant sight but you have to be very patient. We have many varieties of mice, voles and shrews here including the furiously busy pygmy shrew. And, of course, moles. I have been known to fill a barrow or two of mole hills as I find it a lovely light soil for mixing with compost for new plants. Hedgehogs are not uncommon and we have a plentiful supply of bats in our attics - mainly pipistrelle and long-eared.