As the diurnal delights of the animal kingdom slip into a deep slumber, John Lewis-Stempel explores the velvety black shadows where the wild things are.
When the black velvet curtain drops, the farmyard, the meadow, the hill, the river remain the same theatrical stage. But the cast changes at night. Where swallows lacily wheeled around the cowfield in the sunshine comes the nightjar, hawking by hard angles in moonlight. Where butterflies fluttered in the afternoon…
