We leave the farm track, the truck bumping into the open field. The headlights scan the dark expanse of grassland. For a moment, I’m 10 years old again – transported back to a night-time safari with Dad.
This evening, I’m helping with his podcast. And by helping, I mean saying as little as I can get away with, while he talks about the farm and wildlife. We both love communicating about nature, but I prefer the quieter, more introverted process of writing.
There’s a small white glow in the distance – tapetum lucidum, the reflective layer behind mammal retinas. As we approach, several pairs of eyes return the glare of our headlights, revealing six roe deer. They skitter away, bounding across the open meadow, white rumps flashing. Following the tree line, our headlights now illuminate a little owl perched on a young oak. It stares for a moment with those yellow eyes, looking displeased, before whirring off into the night.
By the time we finish, the deer count is in the 30s, with muntjac and Chinese water deer, too, and more than 20 hares. By day, these mammals are just glimpsed, fleeting shapes, rather than grazing out in the open.
We stop by a horse water trough. My dad wants to look for mating slugs, as you do on a Friday night. A couple of large dusky slugs are climbing the tank, leaving their trails sparkling under the torch. But the light picks up something else. At first, I think it’s a child’s toy, a plastic model of a lizard or dinosaur.
“Newt!” Dad exclaims. It is frozen still, completely rigid, one webbed foot held aloft. Its dark skin is bumpy, like goose pimples, and that’s how I know it is the warty and endangered great crested newt.
As a child, they were common in our fishpond. I remember catching one, feeling the cool amphibian skin, then flipping it over to show a surprising orange underbelly spotted with black. Now they are rare, highly protected and must not be disturbed. I quickly turn off the torch; it returns to life and darts back into a crevice. It will likely hibernate there soon.
As podcast guests go, the newt had a similar approach to me: freeze until the spotlight is off, then head home.
• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount
