Like Plop, the owl who was afraid of the dark in Jill Tomlinson’s book, we need to be reminded of the joys of spending time outdoors when night falls.
I cling to the comfort blanket of electric light as much as anyone. It took an invitation from Kim and Nick Hoare to join one of their full-moon walks to get me taking a stroll in that most foreign of lands: the night.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Dorothy and William Wordsworth pioneered walking for pleasure at night in the summer of 1797. But night strolling is the highly questionable behaviour of burglars, poachers and other deviants. The old Romantics were watched with consternation by government spies convinced it was a revolutionary plot.
So joining a friendly walking group is as much about not alarming others as about not being scared. Our decidedly unthreatening band of 12 set off from a lay-by beside Dunwich Heath in Suffolk at dusk. The moon had not yet risen and we were unlikely to see it anyway, given the low firmament of thick, grey cloud.
It was a cool evening and our path through the bracken weaved around scores of small puffballs, mostly in pairs like mystic eggs. When Kim and Nick began their walks a decade ago, they were strict: no dogs, no torches and not much talking – it was a meditation with the moon. They’ve become more laid-back and the group chattered as we walked. Torches remained off, enabling our night vision to sharpen as the colour leached from the land.
As we entered a black-and-white film, we also entered an older state of being human, less reliant on sight and more attuned to other senses. I felt the ground with my feet as I went, and registered smells and sounds more keenly. The sickly scent of honey fungus hung in the air; 30 jackdaws wheeled in the sky, a final act before the roost.
Abruptly, there was a high-pitched ‘wah’ and then a crashing stampede through the woods around us: 15 red deer on the run.
The trees gave way to heath and the pale, sandy path glowed in the gloaming. Ahead, a bright patch of orange above the cloudy horizon. A late sunset? The lights of Southwold? No, this was the rise of the blue supermoon (‘blue’ because it was the second moon of the month; super because it was unusually large in the sky). Sadly, it couldn’t burst through the clouds; the orange flash was as good as it got.
Suddenly, a churring echoed across the heath: a nightjar. Kim waved a white hankie and these strange birds flew closer, believing they were closing in on a tasty moth, swooping low over our heads like giant bats.
Pursued by the menacing whine of mosquitoes, we headed on to the shingle beach. The gravel scrunched, Southwold lighthouse threw its light over the waves and, on the seaward horizon, the lights atop distant wind turbines flashed in unison like cheap Christmas decorations.
The air was salty on the beach and when we turned into Minsmere, it became scented by damp reeds, where geese chuntered.
People like to talk on walks, but there is something particularly confiding about a night walk. Strangers open up when they can’t really see each other, and so life stories unspooled.
The walk became more dreamlike. The track through the woods completely disappeared for the first and only time and we walked through blackness. Cobwebs trailed across our faces. People became simply voices.
Then the blackness lessened, tracing the limbs of fabulous old oaks above us. A ‘ker-wick’ sounded from immediately overhead, with an answering ‘woo’ from the field beyond.
The chatter of people gave way to the conversation of owls. I have never before heard so many owls in one place, a veritable family of Plops. Like him, we were no longer afraid of the dark.
We set off from the lay-by outside Minsmere national nature reserve, walking north across Dunwich Heath before returning via the beach and reserve (with RSPB Minsmere’s permission). You can join Kim and Nick Hoare’s moonlight walks via www.ivygrangefarm.co.uk
