I’ll sleep there because the day before, a silhouette slipped in at the foot of this short cliff. A shadow between the trunks and black rocks of this forest, long after sunset. Third night in my sleeping bag, between the pines and blueberries, covered with a camouflage net. It’s mid-March. In this valley sheltered from everything, even the sun, winter seems to linger. The days are filled with silence and waiting. Only the first half hour yesterday gave a few signs of spring, in the form of a chorus of grey-headed, lesser-spotted, and white-backed woodpeckers, amidst old poplars pierced by many generations of nests.
Tonight, nothing moves, and I wait. My eyes keep returning to this rocky overhang sheltering a path whose author I don’t yet know. Ahead of me, a few meters of descent lead to a long, narrow, peaty meadow dotted with birch trees, which flows to my right into a long, steep, waterlogged slope.

Did I hear her before I saw her?

At the top of this rise, a doe appears. Calm, peaceful, she is only about twenty meters in front of me. One step after the other, her movements are slow and measured. She descends into the meadow, straight toward me, and I lose her for a moment. The wind carries my scent away from her. She hasn’t seen me and I expect her to come out very close, perhaps on me. I am on one of the countless trails used by red deers.

She reappears less than ten meters away, barely below. She has begun to graze on the dry moor-grasses that dot the spongy soil filled with sphagnum moss. Observation with the naked eye. It’s irreplaceable. She takes her time, she scans her surroundings a little, but nothing more. A certain peace, almost nonchalance. She’s living for herself, simply, without having to fear my presence. This is life as it happens when we’re not there. The one that unfolds everywhere, all the time, sheltered from our presence, from our thoughts. A world that flows by, where our importance isn’t even ignored, it’s nonexistent there.

After thirty long minutes, I finally lose sight of her, not because she’s gone, but because it’s too dark. Shrouded in night, I know she’s still very close. She goes about her life, I go about mine. And I snuggle back into my sleeping bag, waiting for the full moon to illuminate the undergrowth.

Adrien

Red deer, fieldsketch
16th March 2025
In the woods somewhere in south-western Norway