Country diary: waking up to traces of nocturnal animals

Stamford, Lincolnshire: Leaner months bring night animals closer to us as the hours of our shifts crossSomething's been happening while we were asleep. This week four things have made me think this: four mornings after the nights before. Four reminders of the night shift. These dawn traces are harder to spot than the detritus of our own late-night species of reveller, those sheepish shadows occasionally spotted slinking home in the silver light of morning. The harder proof is more forensically enigmatic. Item one, a riffled bin and rubbish strewn on a trajectory of retreat across the garden. Two, a strange little thicket of barn owl feathers in a field; no carcass. Three: two badgers at different roadsides, askew on the kerb, like comatose drunks - but, alas, not. We'll come back to item four.It's the night season again. Early November, when the clocks shift, the pumpkins rot and the smell of smoke and gunpowder clears from the air to leave darker dark, earlier dark. It's tempting to think of the nights as longer suddenly, the shade stretched at a stroke. Of course, this is just a contrivance of the clock. But still, what of the night animals? To the non-hibernators, are the long winter nights like our long summer days? Continue reading...