Journal Entry – Lowt’s Wood – Zoning In
Warm and sunny – 16C Wind Sl SW
The light, warm wind blew a gentle kiss on the back of my neck making the hairs stand up. I frowned slightly. How strange! Nothing else moved. The long stems of wild grass remained steady and unmoving. Perhaps I was learning to notice more from these zone-ins after all. Let’s try relaxing the eyes again. I couldn’t help look out of the corner of my right eye. Why did I do that? I felt my eyes straining to see over my right shoulder. I had to move my head. NO! Don’t move! My inner thoughts shrieked at me not to move. During those micro-seconds I was sharp as the sharpest knife. The smell of the woods washed over me. My ever-present tinnitus instantly gave way to acute hearing. I heard the faintest of footfalls. It came from over my right shoulder.
I stayed in that position for hours sitting against the log. Well, it seemed like hours. In fact it was seconds. My patience ran out. I gently, so, so slowly turned my head to the right. My eyeballs strained in their sockets to lead my head around. My shoulders followed. I began to shake with the intensiveness of the slow movement. My torso followed around. Into view came a deer. A fallow deer. She had her head down and was browsing on low shrubs. She was huge. Bigger than any fallow deer I had ever seen… or… wait a minute! She wasn’t huge – she was close! Very, very close. Ten meters… no… no it was five!
And a fawn to her left. A fawn! A baby deer! I was holding my breath. I found myself staring at her. Her head suddenly came up. She barked. The sound went straight through my body like a shockwave it was that loud and powerful. She sprung up in the air and turned one hundred and eighty degrees all at once. How did she do that? And she was gone. Gone! What happened to the fawn I cannot recall. I was shocked and awestruck. I was left sitting against the log in a half turned position with mouth gaping open and the ringing of a deer-bark in my ears. One of the closest encounters with wildlife I was ever to have.
extracted from “Master Tracker” – published by Apple Books
