Each creature has its own allotted time, place, and role within the ecology.
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One by one and wave after wave life animates itself within the biological rhythms of this place.
Now that the sun has set, night reaches across the landscape spreading out from the shady places and caves transfiguring colour into black and white.
At first the crane flies appear, then the moths and the bats. In the distance a fox barks and the barn owl screams her ghostly call.
Under each bush a diamond appears, illuminated by the glow of the waning moon. Closer inspection reveals this jewel is none other than the lunar reflection in the eyes of the great hunting spiders.
These are the nightwalkers and the nightfliers who are more myth than animal, hidden as they are from our daylight attuned senses.
Photo: Nightscapes and wolf spiders on the mountain. Courtesy of the author.