WILD NIGHTS OUT

If you struggle to find places with a wild feel to them during the day, waiting for a few hours might help. As darkness descends, visible signs of human activity start to diminish, and the noise made by people and their machines falls away.

I’ve long been drawn to that magical period when day slowly turns to night, and the select group of species that come alive with the transition. Mostly these are nocturnal animals that get tempted out before it’s fully dark. Badgers often emerge from their sett when it is still light enough to watch them. Foxes are regularly encountered late in the day as the light begins to fade. And Barn Owls head out on their first foraging flights well before dusk, especially if they have young to feed. Even those true night-time specialists, the bats, venture out before it is fully dark. The large and impressive Noctule is usually the earliest to appear. It can be seen high up, using the same airspace as the Swifts - a brief merging of creatures from different realms.

In summer, patterns of birdsong track the slow change from day to night. I often listen in for an hour or so when waiting for the local Badgers to appear above ground. When I first sit down, back against a tree, most of the common woodland birds will be in fUll voice; taking a final opportunity to state ownership of their territory, they proclaim a warning to rivals that they are still around, before they settle down for the night. There’s a rookery not far from one of the setts I watch and late evening is a time when the Rooks, and their inseparable bedfellows, the Jackdaws, swirl overhead in the direction of their nests amid a final clamouring of deep caws and excitable ‘kyacks’. Then, one by one the bird sounds drop out, usually in roughly the same sequence.

Spending time in a place when it’s fully dark is fundamentally different to being there in daylight. This goes beyond the obvious reduced visibility. The whole experience feels unfamiliar. It’s as if you are not quite your normal self, with your usual mindset. I’m now in my fifties but I can still feel strangely unsettled, even frightened, when out walking in a completely dark landscape. Sometimes the fear is triggered by an unexpected shock to the system, such as a Pheasant exploding noisily from its roost. Another non-native, the tiny Muntjac Deer, is even more startling. When disturbed in woodland at night, Muntjac leap away and emit an air-shredding, screaming bark. In the middle of a wood, in the pitch blackness, it takes a few moments to recover your

composure. Even then, your senses remain heightened, tuned in to the rustling of leaves and the breaking of small twigs. It is certainly easier to feel mindfully ‘in the moment’ on a night-time walk, all systems straining to extract as much information as possible from the surroundings.

To lessen these fears, I attempt to think logically about them. I tell myself that such a reaction is nothing more than a natural quirk of evolution, because we once walked in places where there was a high risk of ambush by unseen predators. But instinct trumps logic, especially once the sun has set. Our inbuilt responses to darkness are impossible to shake. They travel with us - a reminder of where we have come from and what we really are: for most of our existence it has been better to be wrongly scared a thousand times than to risk ignoring the approach of a predator just once.

There are a few things you can do to help make things easier on a night walk. One is to dispense with all forms of artificial light as soon as you get outside. So, no torches or smartphone screens. This helps the eyes to adjust (and stay adjusted) to low light levels, so that they can perceive as much detail as possible. It takes a surprisingly long time for this to happen, as much as 20-30 minutes for the full adjustment, and even brief doses of artificial light set the process back. Such a time-lag feels frustrating when you are dazzled by an oncoming car and have to start from scratch, or if you step out into the night from a brightly lit home. But it is another evolved adaptation. Before artificial lighting, the human eye was perfectly suited to the slow transition between day and night that our ancestors would have been familiar with. Once again, this is a small reminder of our history.

While artificial light is not helpful, natural light sources can be useful when on a nocturnal wander. On a clear night, starlight helps a little. But the moon outshines everything else. When it is full, the fields and woodland clearings are flooded with silver light. Walking becomes easier and fear of ambush is diminished. If the ground is white with snow, or even frost, the effect is enhanced; picking out a route across the landscape becomes a truly magical experience.

A visit by my daughter, Ali, in early February provided an oppor­tunity for us to share a night walk - or for me to inflict one on another human, depending on your perspective. Mobile phones were left (grudgingly) at home and with the light slipping away we drove out to a wild estate dominated by woods, scrub and overgrown fields. Leaving the car, we walked into the area before it was fully dark, allowing plenty of time for our eyes to adjust to the slow transition from day to night. A pleasant walk in the still, twilight air.

As we ambled in, Song Thrushes used the last of the light to throw out a few final bursts of song. In winter, late in the day, they are often the only birds singing, and today their short phrases rang out from high perches into the otherwise silent wood.

After about a mile of walking, the Song Thrushes had finally given up the ghost. But other things were still active. Up ahead we saw two bright white creatures, flying jerkily away from us through the trees a few feet above the ground. Little Egrets or Barn Owls perhaps, though what on earth were they doing inside the wood? Dim light and dull thought processes. Only after a few seconds did the image resolve itself into something that finally made sense: they were Roe Deer of course, mostly invisible against the gloomy background but with disembodied white rumps glowing out as they swiftly put distance between us and themselves. (I was reminded of a similar confusion on an evening walk a few years ago. In the distance, at the base of a hedgerow partly obscured by branches, were two large white discs. Parasol mushrooms surely - what else could they be? I walked across the field to investigate and... you already know the ending.)

The transition from dim light at around sunset to maximum darkness takes a surprisingly long time, even in winter. Ali and I realised the problem as we perched on our log discussing the global pandemic and other issues that now seemed a world away. It was very dark but was it still getting darker? It was hard to say. What was the time? We had no idea. The bark of the Beech trees all around us had mostly dissolved into the blackness. The tall trunks and the moss that covered many of them were gone. Only the patches of pale green lichen that seems to thrive on Beech trees remained faintly visible, conjuring otherworldly patterns through the forest.

The extent to which our eyes are capable of adapting to low light comes as a surprise because we are so unfamiliar with it. Here, even in the depths of winter on what had now become a wet and overcast night, we could pick our way through the landscape without too much trouble. Out in the open there were clear gradations of light to help us decode the terrain ahead. Thie pale straw stems of Purple Moor-grass stood out like a ghostly, ground-hugging fog, contrasting with the apparent blackness of dead Bracken. Where the rain had started to pool between the tussocks it faintly reflected the sky, highlighting the flat ground ahead where a foot could safely be placed.

Beneath the shelter of trees, progress was slower. A woodland stream, with its steep, slippery banks, was a real challenge to traverse, featureless and black under the canopy. As we waded across, a series of strange pale creatures swept away from us across the surface of the water, gracefully weaving between unseen rocks before disappearing. Had they dived below the surface? A cautious hand, reaching down into the stream, resolved the mystery. The churning water had created patches of foam, white enough to hold the faintest trace of light. Our boots nudged them out into the main flow where they wriggled past obstructions before breaking apart.

It took about an hour to get back to the lane. And only when I unlocked the car did the full extent of our night vision become clear. I clicked the key fob and we both gasped at a sudden explosion of orange as the hazard lights flashed on. The intense light was more felt within the eyes than seen. Our night vision was now useless once again, and looking back along the route we’d taken there was nothing but impenetrable, inhospitable blackness.

If there was one thing lacking on this night walk it was wildlife. Perhaps the heavy rain was part of the reason. Once the deceiving Roe Deer had slipped away, and the birds had stopped singing, the only other sign of animal life (false alarms excepted) was a distant hooting Tawny Owl. But what the woods and fields lacked in wildlife, the saturated backroads more than made up for on the drive home. Potholes and ditches were now full of water. And almost every patch of water was now full of Frogs. Here was unexpected abundance brought out by the rain. The Frogs were so focused on each other and the instinct to breed that they ignored the car headlights. We stopped and Ali jumped out to rescue the first animals we saw on the road itself. We paused for a while with the engine turned off to listen to the low chorus of croaking all around us. Then we headed home, weaving the car carefully between oblivious amphibians as we went.