4.45 am Sun. 3 July. Hill old road (Woodend Lane) Glos. The early morning is bright, with the moon still high in the sky. It is cool, with mist low on the fields in patches. At the turning, a little owl stands motionless in the road, and I watched a red fox sniff its way down the sloping field next to the lane.
5.43 am. A herd of red deer standing in the wood. I expect they are escapees from Whitcliff deer park, Berkeley. It’s a dank nasty wood, full of mosquitoes, but the ground cover is beautiful ferns and sedges. A green woodpecker flew across the wood ride, with blackcaps and chiffchaffs calling incessantly. I walked smartly out into the clear morning. It is quite cool on the dark side of the wood. There are rabbits playing on log fences provided for the Berkeley hunt. Then I stepped on a pheasant – Quite a shock! There are large areas of honeysuckle scent, with no visible plant. Perhaps the fragrance is carried on the breeze.
A little male foxcub wanders along the woodedge, sniffing and defecating, then he slowly ambles away from me over the hill brow. It was curled up under a tree further on just now, and as I crept up on it, it fled to the wood. I walked to the base of the tree. It looks like his usual resting place, slightly damp with urine. Another foxcub is further down the slope, peacefully curled up on a little log, just in the field. I walked closer and eventually saw him between two logs, poking his wide head out. He saw me and skipped up the bank into the trees as well. Two hares are also in the field. I’m now sitting on the highest point above Woodend Lane, above the old Hill to Berkeley unmetalled road, by what appears to be a fruit tree with a small gnarled trunk, well-proportioned and lonely out on this exposed slope. Some Hereford calves have come up to inspect me, pretending to crop grass.
It’s quite a vista, stretching round from the Severn bridge on the right, through Sundayshill woodland in front, and round to Nibley monument and the slopes of the wooded hill I climbed at the start of the walk.
A pair of ducks fly past. The meadows are filled with the sounds of birds. There is a smear of yellow cloud over towards Avonmouth, otherwise the dome of sky is crystal clear.
The sun is milky now, quite high, still casting long shadows, but warm. It has dried my jean’s knees where the long seed heads of mowing grass have dewed them. A chiffchaff endlessly calls.
A very large hare is down in the newmown field below me, sitting up and wagging his front paws madly, then washing his face.
I see now why the foxcub disappeared at that spot in the wood – I have just been watching five foxcubs playing like pups, at the woodside and into the field. Two especially playful cubs chased each other in wide circles. One by one they have just sidled back into the wood, shadowy orange flashes in the dark green undergrowth.
I am now looking down the mown field at another fox, full grown this time, stalking prey down the field headland. A magpie is mobbing it, flying down and landing close by. The fox stops and hunts just like a cat. As it rounded the field corner it came within sighting distance of the big hare, about 40 yards away. The hare saw the fox first and pricked up his ears, then galloped away across the field. The fox caught the movement, turned to watch the hare lollop out of sight – then he continued down the field side, breaking into a canter as he reached the opening into the old road. He stopped, turned his head left, then trotted off down the road. In the next field a heron stood like an arrow until I moved, then sedately got airborne and flapped gracefully across the valley.
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