Ok, so I’m NOT a prowler.
That established I should say that last night I did prowl – on my land. I left the house about 2100 hrs and had time to walk some distance across salt flats before the high tide made further progress stupid. I found a sheltered spot, rigged a simple lean-to wind break with a tarp, got the stove out (Bongo HN Deluxe) and had a brew of thick hot chocolate and then some spicy rice I had dehydrated last year.
Weather was strange. There was an easterly breeze which was bitter, but there was also mist blown in from the Wash. It was a thickish swirling mist that almost had solid substance. It oozed over the land rather than drifted. It seemed alive, almost carnivorous.
There was an accompaniment of hoots and wails, the grumbling of flowing water and a shifting sensation as the land moved as the tidal inundation passed with the ebb and life began to settle a little before the next flooding. The hoots and wails were generally owls (both Tawny – hoots- and Barn – wails and shrieks)
With the ebbing water the mist cleared, breeze increased to a wind; it was time to move on again and go east towards the sea defenses. Behind these reinforced dunes I was hoping to find a few late geese but instead found ducks by the score. They were a shifting mass of birdkind, unseen but chortling as they fed – almost another total entity made up of munching cells.
Finally I reached the shoreline and was able to see the flashes of light from buoys (inshore) and the more powerful sweep of the local lightships (out in the Wash)
The offshore breeze brought with it the evocative scent of the coast- the fishy, rotting vegetation smells of the littoral tempered with the sharp tang of salt and ozone.
Time now was 0130 hrs. Time to pitch a quick shelter and simply chill out and wait. Easy, a walking pole, 5′ x 8′ tarp and my blizzard bag and that was me settled. A 3/4 pint of scalding hot tea and I relaxed to simply absorb the night.
It’s an eerie feeling being out in this land at night. The distant lapping of waves is a constant backdrop but the foreground is littered with audible dross. There are rustles and squeaks as small night creatures scurry furtively about their business with a wariness born of generations of survival genes. Then there are the raptors, those beasts of the night who have no fear, they are Gods of their land as they prowl and sift the scent of a constantly moving atmosphere which harbours fear and trepidation. They pass silently in the dark and there is almost a communal sigh of relief from the now still, crouched lurkers. Let no one say otherwise, nature is ongoing warfare, a constant battle between the hunters and the hunted. Only occasionally does the balance change – when the noisy creature (man)- stumbles along.
I dozed away the next few hours, half in this world and half somewhere else. Images moved about the landscape of my consciousness, whether the land ‘outside’ or whether the land ‘within’ my mind I don’t really know. It was a tense but at the same time relaxing experience which I should do more often. I had forgotten what it really feels like to prowl the margins between reality and ‘other worlds’.
A lightening over the sea announced the loss of the mysterious dark. A new day was in the making and I needed to move on. I had had my night prowl. Now I must return to the ‘real’ world. How real was the night world though? As always, I remembered, lurking in the darkness has its own sense of reality.
