Foxglove

The dog seemed to have her 'night eyes' straight away, for she was pacing around me, eager to get on. I clipped the battery pack around my waist, tested the lamp briefly, and started to walk. The dog needed no command to stay at heel: this was her world and she knew what was expected of her.

Despite the drying winds, the field I approached out of the strip of woodland was heavy walking, the tilth treading deeply under each footfall. I switched the lamp on briefly, then off.

That showed me three roe deer in the open field, eating the wheat, and a rabbit close to the boundary hedge. Ignoring the deer, as she has been taught, the dog queried the rabbit with a sharp prod of her nose on my leg. No, not that one.

She showed her disapproval by a sharp intake of breath, but stayed to heel. We topped the rise, which seemed steeper than when I had last been there, and our reward was a rabbit well-placed out in the first third of the field.

Stark white light enveloped it, and the dog began her run. The rabbit sat up uncertainly, and the dog picked it up with a neat sideways flick of her head.

Further along were two rabbits together, just beginning to hop towards the woods as I switched on the lamp again. I thought she would go for one but she chose the other, and it gave her a hard and tricky run, swerving and spinning to try and throw her off so that it could get to the trees.