The last few weeks down the mill have been somewhat dull. The weather has been on the whole uninspiring and there have been very few winter arrivals and I am missing the summer visitors. There is a form of stillness hanging in the air most days and the wildlife, like most of the population seemed to be hiding away.
I often wonder what it is about being in nature that I find
so appealing. On the whole, this feeling is ineffable but there are elements
that can be teased out. One element is that of chance. I am not a twitcher by
nature nor do I have the patience for sitting for long hours staking out the
animal in question instead I rely on happenstance.
The chance encounters I make with wildlife were exemplified
today as I made my weekly rounds. Much of my patch was flooded and the water
too deep for my wellingtons. As I patrolled the bankside, walking stealthily so
as not to surprise any Teal I came across a Fox.
I was standing on the bank watching the swirling water when down the slope on the other bank a rather large healthy fox totted. He spotted me about the same time I spotted him and the two of us regarded each other a moment. I considered the likelihood of this encounter, we each live different lives and our separate paths had intersected on this riverbank at this time. Had I been a few minutes earlier or later, or the water just a few centimetres higher then we would never have met.
What was Mr Fox doing I wondered, I doubted it was hunting
for a start the gait was quite sedate and his posture did not strike me as hungry.
Additionally, the small birds around us both seemed at ease with him. I have
seen many foxes in my time and the Great Tits and Blue Tits make a very distinct
sound when alarmed by a fox, it’s very different in tone and speed to the threat
of a Sparrowhawk. On the whole, they seem to be aware of when a fox is predating
and not just passing by. Like me, the Fox was out patrolling his territory and
today our paths coincided.
A second encounter occurred some twenty minutes later when
further upriver on my patch I spotted the electric blue of a Kingfisher’s back
sat in a bush. Like the fox, it wasn’t particularly bothered by me and allowed
me to take a seat and watch as it tried to fish in the silt swollen river.
Another intersection of happenstance. The Kingfisher doesn’t normally fish on
this stretch preferring a quieter stretch with more trees but given the swollen
river and the darkness of the water had adjusted itself to fish in the shallows
where the river was not so fast.
My camera trapping exploits highlight how fragile these intersections with wildlife are. Last week I was 20 minutes later than the otter by the river and I missed the Roe Deer by a mere 5 minutes another day. Three minutes or twenty are as good as a day in these cases. One can imagine that all these animals go about their days in quiet disregard of each other and in particular me. Each time we cross paths is a moment of coincidence, of a myriad of factors. You never know which intersection you will get and that I guess is the appeal. I have been visiting my patch for nearly 20 years and it is these encounters that add the requisite excitement that holds my interest.
