Conservation Manager, Stuart Benn, on Glastonbury and the joys of being out after dark...

Good Times

What did you make of Glastonbury this year?

I’d have loved to be there but had to make do with watching it on the telly and online.

I can’t say that The Stones did it for me but some of my own highlights were The Editors, Two Door Cinema Club, Jessie Ware, Chase & Status and one of my real current faves Toro Y Moi. But the act that surpassed all of them was Chic – I first heard them in the Glasgow clubs in the late 70s (not exactly Studio 54 but great fun all the same) and have loved them ever since. Others also loved that disco groove and Nile Rodgers went on to work with Madonna, Bowie and a whole stack of others right up to Daft Punk today. Chic delivered a storming set of pure joy – if you feel a bit glum then just watch a recording of it and I defy you not to cheer up!

Chic at Glastonbury. Photo via http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/

But another thing struck me – there was definitely a different feeling to the bands that were on at night, there was more intimacy, a heightened feeling of excitement. Maybe it’s something about the secrecy that darkness brings that raises our other senses and makes it really special to be out and about when the sun is down.

You’ll have guessed that I love being out at night and I managed a few outings this year while volunteering for the woodcock survey. Woodcock are brilliant – the colour of fallen leaves and unique among British waders in that they’re most active between dusk and dawn. As children, we get told off for having eyes bigger than our stomach but woodcock have eyes bigger than their brain to help them move around at night and they can also see backwards and forwards at the same time. How cool would that be!

Woodcock via rspb-images.

Actually, you can get some sense of what it’s like by holding a mirror up to half of your face – not sure I’d want to do it all the time but it’s amazing how quickly you get used to it.

Anyway, back to the survey. The area I was working was above Drumnadrochit, home of not one but two Loch Ness Monster Exhibitions and a name that rolls round the palate like a fine malt whisky. I had to be in position before dusk and record any woodcock going over until an hour after sunset - as the world stills around you and the traffic on the lochside road fades, you sit and wait and watch and listen and become aware of all the other creatures that are about. A cuckoo cuckoos, bats flit by, a shadow stops and transforms into a pine marten winnowing the air with its nose testing for danger, owls hoot, deer bark.

Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle at night.

I walk out under the stars – no need for a torch, it’s surprising how well you can see when your eyes have slowly become accustomed to the gathering dark.

And maybe there’s something else about being out in the dark – maybe there’s still that little bit of fear that is hardwired into us, deeply ancestral, that goes beyond rational thought. How many times have we seen the creatures of the night, the owls and cats and bats pictured alongside witches and necromancers, the familiars and accomplices to all kinds of dark deeds? But now we know that the only magic afoot is the magic of being out when the rest of the world is indoors doing boring stuff. We’re safe but that little tingle is still there and it adds to the experience.

Mural near Inverness

Have you ever really been out at night? How do you fancy it? Well here’s your chance – the RSPB is running the Big Wild Sleep Out over the weekend of 9-11 August and there’s events up and down the country with all sorts of brilliant things planned – camping, walks, story telling, bats, moths, watching the sun come up.

Keep checking the website for any events near you or why not organise your own? In North Scotland ours is at Fortrose near Inverness and you can get the details and book by contacting bwsoblackisle@rspb.org.uk or phoning 01463 715000.

See you there – can’t promise that it’ll be the whole Glasto experience but it will certainly be plenty of fun. Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah!!!