A proper evening walk.

Tonight's walk - minus the old dog who considered it too hot to get out of bed - took me round the nearest rape field and up the side of the wood, and then away from the mozzies through the hedge onto a headland around some fresh stubble. I almost tripped over two big brown hares who just crouched motionless and stared at me as I got closer until I suggested - out loud - that I might be dangerous.

As they legged it I heard something weighty trotting through the field I had just left, and stuck my head back through the gap just in time to see a big red hind lolloping past through the dry crop. She saw me and stopped dead - obviously amazed at the elegance of the bright orange shirt that my wife had insisted I wear ("it'll keep you cool") - and then she did one of those beautiful slow fades into the wood and was gone.

As I headed back the way I'd come I couldn't help but notice the roe doe who was keeping pace with me 25 yards out into the rape - BOING BOING BOING - and then she too sped up to cross my path and head into cover ... just as a hunting barn owl tracked up the wood from in front of me, passed me at about 10 feet without a second glance (that shirt again) and carried on with its mission.

And if that wasn't enough I turned for home and spotted a magic black (or at least a very, very dark brown) hare in my way further up the ride. Sadly by now the shirt had lost its paralysing power, so I wasn't able to get any closer for a decent photo.

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A proper walk, though :)
 
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