For day 4 of Paul Brookes’ Wildness challenge.

Discreet encounters

When first we came to this house, it was wild. Wilder than now. The old one who had hung on here alone after the old man died was in a home, and the house had been empty. Always peaceful, the meadows were unvisited by humankind for years, and badgers, deer, martens, hares, owls and foxes with nothing to fear had sidled up to, or sidled into the house. Those first seasons, I don’t know how many times I blundered across animals I didn’t even recognise. Later, they grew wary and once again kept their distance.

The first to leave were the owls in the attic. Then the hare that left her young ones by the house moved them out into the meadow. I trod on one in the long grass under the study window. The scream of a hare is…