Creatures of the Night

Along the rivers and wooded hills of western Britain, Alfred Wellesley Rees follows wild animals through their nightly routines. These prose studies give individual creatures names and tell their experiences as connected stories. The opening introduces Lutra, an otter cub seen during a late summer fishing trip, amid cloud, birdsong and moving water. Chapters on voles, foxes, hares, badgers and hedgehogs extend that attention to burrows, feeding grounds and the changing seasons.

Animal life here includes play, parental care and the constant need to recognise danger. In the account of Vulp the fox, hedges and thickets become routes of escape when a lurcher gives chase; later, a call across the snow brings him to another fox. Rees combines descriptions of habitat and behaviour with an imaginative account of animal feelings. Readers interested in older nature writing can see how close observation becomes a story about survival in a shared countryside.