Take a look outside at night – you never know

SOAK up the dark evening garden for some peace in the run up to Christmas. Sadly the pandemic has ensured the build up will be much less frantic than usual: very little shopping, no Christmas market or office parties, and family get-togethers will be much curtailed.

But whatever our pressures this Christmas, we’ll need to unwind and as ever, the garden is just the place. Life carries on during the hours of darkness, even if the cast of players changes.

Many birds and insects are safely tucked up and as light begins to fade in summer I’ve seen bats, literally in their hundreds, emerge from beneath the eaves of the house.

And when approaching the poultry run in the dark, I sometimes glimpse the startled red eyes of a badger scavenging for spilt crumbs of feed. And see moths swirling in the beam of my headtorch.

In winter the nighttime garden also works its magic. All is still apart from the eerie hoot of owls sounding out across the valley.

There’s little else to see other than the graceful silhouette of trees highlighted by a clear full moon and the infinite blackness of the sky speckled with the tiniest spots of light from distant galaxies.

Nothing can be more enthralling than this.

The pandemic, fears about next month’s credit card bill and the Christmas cards you forgot to send are as nothing now.

The infinite universe can only fill you with awe, just as it did our ancestors thousands of years ago.

As light returns the following day and I venture out on a snowy morning, I see footprints showing the place was buzzing with life – badger, fox and deer all left their mark.

The other day, I even disturbed a fox sheltering in the woodshed and saw it leap from pile to pile in agitation.

I know I’m very lucky. The sky is truly dark here and a passing car is a rare event in the evening. But this is sadly unusual. It’s estimated that global light pollution levels are increasing by 2% every year. Street lights cast their orange pall, LED lighting shines in and around every house and empty office blocks blaze out.

Night really isn’t as frightening these days as it was for our forebears and when trying to turn night into day we’ve gone too far. Scientists at Exeter University published a paper earlier this year detailing the effects of light pollution.

It was based on findings from 126 other research studies.

Kevin Gaston, lead author of this meta-analysis said: “What stands out is how pervasive the effects are. The effects were found everywhere – microbes, invertebrates, animals and plants. We need to start thinking about lighting in the way we think of other big systemic pressures like climate change.”

And to think of it as pollution. This extra and often unnecessary light contributes to the early bud burst and flowering we all notice, putting plants and pollinators out of sync.

If, like me, you live in the country or in the suburbs, you’ll probably enjoy some natural darkness. Even in the city centre, there will be shady places in the garden.

So all is not lost. If you do make a foray in the evening, you’ll need to turn off any lights.

Be still, pick out whatever you can – the shapes and patterns on deciduous trees etched against the sky have beauty. Run your hand across an oak’s gnarly bark or the smooth paper-thin skin of a rowan.

Take a deep breath: no intoxicating summer fragrance but the clear cool, virtually odourless winter air.

And listen: you might hear the scuffle of a busy wee rodent.

Visit askorganic.co. uk. Follow Dave on Twitter @boddave

The garden at night can be full of life