Quote of the day:

"When an ecologist says 'there goes a badger,' he should include in his thoughts some definite idea of the animal's place in the community to which it belongs, just as if he had said, 'there goes the vicar.'"

--Charles Elton. (An early ecologist).


Except, I tend to think of badgers more as like the rugby players or lorry-drivers of the hedgerow world, not the vicars. (I think that role might fall to a hedgehog*, or a particularly contemplative squirrel).

I love the old British scientists; sometimes I think my mind must operate in similar channels to theirs. (I suppose whimsy has something to do with it.)


(*because: "the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing" reference)