Morning Encounters
- 22 hours ago
- 4 min read
I walk every morning before sunrise. Originally, it was for walking my dog Brandy before the sun made the road too hot for his paws. He has been gone for just over a year now, but I still like to walk. It is mostly for exercise now as I am carrying a little holiday weight. I am not saying that I am fat, but I have had that holiday weight for about 4 years now! As it is dark and I rarely see much, I stopped taking the camera. I saw an Eagle owl soon after and so I always take the camera now. Obviously, I have not seen the eagle owl since.
The first part of my walk is the toughest part as I walk up into the hills for 1.5km. There is a lot of panting and sweating going on but I try and concentrate on the sounds all around me. Little owls screech at each other, and scops owls call out "Bob" from the trees. I often hear rock partridge clucking away but rarely see them and martens whistle from the blackness of the surrounding scrubland.
In late spring, the nightjars arrive from Africa to breed. I mostly hear their churring call as they rest on a branch and their clicking call as they hunt around my head. I always stop to watch their twisting flight as they catch moths. They are like raptors as they hunt and are known as night hawks. It is dark while they are around and I was sure I could never get a photo of them.
The next part of my walk takes me back through my village and down to the weir where I stop and drink coffee from my flask. The sky in the east is now turning red, but it is still too dark for my camera. I sit on the wall and hope for something to happen. Most of the time I am surrounded by midges and mosquitoes with pipistrelle bats feeding on them. Jays will shout from the trees which lean over the water and blackbirds bounce around picking up breakfast.
Twice now, as I have been sitting, daydreaming, a brown rat has run along the bottom of the wall and bumped into me. I can tell you that it certainly brings you back to reality quickly.
A few weeks ago, I happened to catch some movement further along the road. I got my binoculars up and saw that it was a fox. It was heading back to feed cubs as it had a chicken in its mouth. I managed to get a couple of quick shots. The foxes here do not call out at all, which I assume is a consequence of the shooting that happens all over the island. I was very pleased and hoped the photos were in focus as it was the first time I had got my camera up in time whilst seeing a fox. Still thinking about the fox, I saw something yellow, scuttling towards me from the other side of the road. I got up and it stopped. I walked over and saw a freshwater crab staring at me. I don't have a crustacean section on my website, but I took a couple of shots and then went back to sit down so that the crab could continue its journey to the water. At this point, the local priest in his large green pickup came around the corner. Unfortunately, the crab did not move. I would like to think that it did not know much about it, and its end was very quick. The jays were happy though.
Recently as I approached the weir, I saw movement at the side of the road. I got my binoculars up and saw a rat fighting with something. As I carefully approached (like a ninja), the rat saw me, (so not like a ninja) it jumped and ran into the hedge. I found that it had been trying to kill a leopard snake. The snake had bite marks near its tail but seemed happy to keep moving across the road. Now this is a snake I have wanted to see since I arrived on the island nearly 6 years ago. It is a stunning reptile, grey with red markings bordered with black. I managed to get several shots before it reached the undergrowth.
This last week I found one of the perches that the nightjars use. It was close to the weir and so I have been arriving slightly earlier so that I could listen to their song. Although it is still dark when they sing, I got some silhouette shots and tried lightening them up on my editing suite.
My journey home is as the sun is rising and so there is a lot more light to work with. A lot more birds are about, especially bee-eaters which congregate on phone lines before going out to chase bees and wasps. Also, at this time of year, there are lots of woodchat shrikes. These beautiful birds can be spotted all the way along my road home.
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