Valley of the Shadow

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Hunters were coming. Humans. The baying of their hounds echoed eerily through the narrow glen. Rising swiftly from the waters of a small central lake, a speckled, white-rumped, curlew flapped upwards, announcing its annoyance at having to leave a potential meal of choice crab behind; its long down-curved beak giving forth a haunting, plaintive cry — ‘coo-li!’, ‘coo-li!’. It rose upwards into the air until it became a mere black speck, moving in ever widening circles, against the cloudless azure sky. The only other object in that blue canopy was the large, bright, gold-white orb of the sun now settling towards the western half of the sky and whose rays caused the indigo waters of the lake to sparkle like a myriad of bright, glittering jewels as the beams caught it.

It was a hot, lazy day. But now, the sluggish atmosphere was being disturbed as a general alarm began to spread. An otter, with its long body and powerful tail curving behind, ran swiftly for cover with a hunched and rolling gait. On a mountain track, a fallow deer buck, with broad blade antlers, still covered by velvet growth, which would shortly be discarded when the rutting season arrived, halted with its nostrils quivering. Had the baying of the hounds not warned it, the peculiar scent of man, its only feared predator, would have caused the beast to turn and scramble upwards, over the shoulder of the hill away from the approaching menace. Only a single animal remained nibbling on the gorse and heather, apparently unconcerned by the frenzy which seized its fellow beasts. On a rocky protrusion stood a small, shaggy-haired, sure-footed feral goat, with its spreading horns. With its jaws rhythmically munching, it continued in its indifferent, lethargic stance.

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