Country diary: bats hunt by the light of the silvery harvest moon

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire Seen through the shaggy boughs of an old larch, the full moon had the strange allure that moths and wanderers know

A streetlight in the lane enamelled hollies with a sodium glow and sucked the colour from the leaves of other trees. The church bell rang eight or maybe nine; there was a soughing through the limes.

Suddenly, I felt a tiny sonic boom and the draught of a bat's wing close to my ear. It was like a tap on the shoulder, not a shock so much as a greeting but, all the same, a jolting from thoughts about one world into another, where unseen lives almost touch.