Strength and sensitivity of the not so bumbling mole

Blacka Moor, Derbyshire Moles are not creatures you get to examine regularly, so I studied this one

Foraging for bilberries in the cool of early morning, a blackcap stationed itself in a rowan near the bush I was combing, its muscular, liquid song masking the abstract drone of distant traffic. Thanks to the cold spring and the sudden heat of the week before, the berries were small but sweet and so I moved around the bush to find more.

Those paws could dig through loose concrete, but flick them on their long pink noses and they would bleed to death