Of men and beasts

Not so long ago, on a cold but sunny Saturday morning, I decided to go a bit further afield than usual for my walk, and drove to the Dunes north of where I live, a wide area, protected because here drinking water is filtered through the sand.

I thought that early on a Saturday morning people would be shopping for food and not out yet for a walk. In that I was totally wrong. The car park was packed and I had to drive three times round it until somebody left and I was lucky to get in first. The dunes there are wide and cover a large area from South to North. Once away from the entrance it wasn’t too crowded at all. Serious walkers with backpacks and sturdy walking boots hike the whole length of this area. Dogs are not allowed, nor bicycles, so it a very nice place for a walk. No noise of traffic, sometimes of planes, but there haven’t been many since the first lockdown. It is a quiet and peaceful place.

There is still snow between the dead bracken after an arctic week,  and this is usually a dry landscape, there are many bog like places and puddles.

I had not only misjudged the number of people, but there was another thing I was wrong about. Some twenty years ago I think, I was walking there when to my utter surprise a deer jumped across the path! I was dumbstruck and quite excited. As a child the dunes were the habitat of rabbits, pheasants and partridges. A deer was very unusual. They belonged to woods and fields, not to dry dunes and sea air. On later walks, looking out for a stray deer, I wasn’t at all lucky. So I hoped to be luckier this time. Little did I know that the dunes are now infested with deer. I almost tripped over them. They are everywhere and quite used to people.

This deer certainly wasn't shy!

The novelty of seeing a deer had gone! Now I was looking out for pheasants and partridges, birds which have completely disappeared from this landscape. Because of the many foxes perhaps, which I never saw there when I was young and growing up next to the dunes more to the south. The dunes and the beach were our backyard. I used to take part in day walks or marches, which were very popular and organized on special days like Ascension Day or the Queen’ s birthday which was a holiday. Groups would take part, but individuals could also do that. You paid a small sum and was awarded with a medal afterwards. Your card was stamped at several posts along the route, where you could also get water.  There were several distances to choose from, some depending on age. I usually walked a distance between 12 and 15 kms, as I was very small for my age and only in primary school. One time I walked 18 kms and was exhausted once I was home. I decided 15 was my limit. The nice thing was that the many impressive country houses which were generally closed to the public and privately owned, built on the border of dunes and wooded or arable land, were open to the walkers. So we might walk through beautiful parkland, which I loved. I still have those medals, plus the little notebook especially made for walkers in which one could jot down anything of interest: what one had noticed or seen during the walk etc. Apparently I counted the pheasants and partridges, being more interested in the pheasants because of the splendid colours of the male. I think they have all disappeared now. The notebooks were stamped by the organization once you had finished the walk.

The openness of the landscape

Also the rabbits have long gone, due to an outbreak of a disease somewhere in the 20^th century, killing most of them. I think they have come back in small numbers, but I did not see any at all. Peculiar how an animal one takes for granted and which was so common, all of a sudden becomes almost an endangered species!