What do we know

I saw so much that day, but it’s the ephemeral things that I can’t get out of my head.

Pine tree tops
In the blue night
frost haze, the sky glows
with the moon
pine tree tops
bend snow-blue, fade
into sky, frost, starlight.
The creak of boots.
Rabbit tracks, deer tracks,
what do we know.

                   Gary Snyder

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Herbivores 2, Omnivores nil.

I turned back soon after I had seen the fox. I was bursting to tell someone about it, and as the wind was no longer in my favour and I wasn’t taking any care over how quietly I walked, I was not expecting to see my inquisitive friend from earlier grazing about fifty yards up the trail. It was a roe deer, and when I photographed it, it was alternately eating wild flowers from the hedgerow and scuffing up the ground to find something good to eat – I don’t know what, although I have read that deer sometimes eat the tubers of Lords and Ladies plants. Unsure of how close I could get, I crept along, hiding behind the dense foliage of the overhanging trees until I was close enough to get a few pictures. I was becoming proud of my amateur stalking technique until it became apparent that once again the deer was well aware of my presence and always had been.

I had the distinct impression that it felt far more in control of the situation than I could ever be, so I gave up my pretence of stalking and just began to follow it in the open, and the deer adjusted the distance between us as it saw fit. It seemed to have a comfort zone of about twenty yards, and until I got a terrible urge for a cup of tea and began to move more purposefully it lingered serenely in the tunnel of trees.

After lunch I went back out, determined to prove myself able to move unnoticed through the fields and hedgerows. If the fox had utterly failed to see me when I was right under his nose I felt sure I could work the same magic again, and deliberately this time.

Creeping along the trail for a third time, I was rewarded by the delightful sight of three baby rabbits grazing and gambolling in the grass close to where I’d seen the fox. I can’t begin to tell you how painstakingly I worked my way towards them; how I winced when I trod “SCRUNCH!” on an unfortunate snail and three sets of long, hairy ears swivelled suspiciously in my direction, nor how excruciatingly careful I was to remain invisible. I felt I had truly earned my right to watch when I got to within about five metres and they were still cavorting giddily; then I trod heavily on a twig…and…and… nothing happened! Slightly deflated I stepped out in plain view, and sure enough the rabbits continued to graze unconcernedly, while keeping an insultingly casual eye on me. They were not scared or even particularly curious, and I wondered if they would have been this nonchalant about the fox I had seen stalking them earlier. It’s true that young rabbits are notorious for their insolence but again I felt out of my depth; the rabbits were certainly taking a risk, yet I felt that in attempting to creep up on them I was the foolish one. They had sized me up and seen no threat, and luckily for them, they had been right.

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The ones that got away

Last weekend we visited R’s parents again. The countryside has changed and matured in the scant weeks since our last visit; since then crops have been harvested, caterpillars have dispersed and pupated and summer is having it’s final gaudy fling. I went out for a short walk to photograph the Lords and Ladies, whose berries were fat and ripening in the hedgerow. Wearing new rubber soled baseball shoes I found my tread lighter than usual, and while I revelled in this it wasn’t my main concern – that lay in getting a correct exposure in the tricky dappled light. I’d crouched awkwardly among the leaf litter for a little too long, and after failing to get my shot I straightened up to see, looking at me over the hedge with uncertain curiosity, a small deer. I stared at the deer in astonishment – at furthest two metres from me – and it stared back, until the spell broke and it wheeled and vanished into the trees.

Two interesting things – the deer had, I am sure, been aware of me for some time and far from being afraid, it had indulged in a little people watching. What on earth would this creature have made of what it saw? Deer are widespread and considered vermin in the gardens and farmlands of Hampshire; people are no friend to them, and the deer generally know this. I found the creatures daring and curiosity exhilarating. The second interesting thing is that I have no pictorial record of this encounter. Why? I am a notorious shutterbug and had my camera switched on and ready in my hand.  I could say that it wasn’t set up for the shot, and I could say that I was afraid to move lest the flash of the camera lens startle the animal. Both are true, and neither. I just wanted to drink in this moment of contemplating an unfamiliar being without anything else getting in the way. To raise a camera at the moment my eyes met those of a wild animal would have been crass; instead of having a quiet shared moment with this creature, I would have become a gawking tourist.

After I’d recovered from the surprise of being stalked by a deer, I decided to forget the botanical shots and test out my new, silent shoes. Padding quietly along the trail I didn’t expect to see anything more than rabbits; the deer was probably several fields away by now. At a small clearing where two trails meet I stepped out into the open patch of short sunny rabbit grazed grass. As I did so, a red fox, slender and lithe, emerged from the thick hedge directly opposite and stepped into the clearing with me. Nose quivering, belly to the floor, it hadn’t noticed me at all, and I can only assume that it was intent on the trail of tender baby rabbits. For the second time in less than ten minutes my jaw dropped as I regarded the small, fierce animal creeping towards me. The moment at which the fox noticed me was one of pure indignity for both of us. It started in cartoon-like horror, all four feet leaving the ground simultaneously and flailing midair as it frantically tried to change direction by 180 degrees. The elegant creature from a moment ago had metamorphosed into Wiley E Coyote, and I was clumsily grappling with my camera like a buffoon from a silent film, determined this time to have proof of what I had seen. Ha! So much for my precious anti-tourist stance, here I was fumbling at the controls of my little point and shoot and doing a little jig of frustration.  It would have looked to a third party (perhaps a deer?) like someone had just shot 1000 volts through both of us. Net result? I got an oddly tilted picture of a blurred and empty hedgerow, the fox got no dinner and the bunnies hiding in the long grass undoubtedly got a right good belly laugh.

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