The Wild

When we walk the paths through the forestry or across the open links or wherever humans have allowed Nature some freedom we're consciously on the lookout for something exciting. We've had the good fortune to see a number of the more hidden larger animals - red squirrels, roe deer - but there are others which remain elusive. For example, we know there are pine martens in the forestry but, other than one momentary sighting by Mrs MW and some good, clear prints in the snow, we've yet to see one. It's rather the same with badgers: we've found where they've dug for wasps nests but we've never been able to watch one.

Sometimes I try to imagine what it would be like if our wilder places were home to more dangerous beasts, and a walk through the woods became as nerve-tingling as....

....this wander through a Canadian forest, where the local bears seemed to have left an unusually large number of their calling cards; or....

....as frightening as this walk through the Tanzanian wilderness, where the danger was so real that a man with a rifle had to accompany us. 

So sometimes I walk the local paths and imagine what it would be like if there were some very dangerous beasts lurking in the thickets or lying in wait in the bracken. It wouldn't stop me walking, and it would certainly make me much more sharply aware of my surrounding, but I would be very fearful of meeting something really nasty. Perhaps it would be good for me, but perhaps, inevitably, what I would want would be a rifle slung across my shoulder. And if everyone did that, we'd soon clear the place of anything dangerous.