Goshawk meets Joggers

Helen Macdonald takes her goshawk on an evening walk in Cambridge and together they witness a bizarre human ritual:

The light was thickening into real dusk at this point, and it started to rain. And with the rain and the dusk came the smell of autumn. Made me shiver happily. But I had no idea what amazement was still to come. Because Gos and I were about to witness an extraordinary phenomenon, an evening ritual I had no idea existed until today.

Joggers! Like bats leaving their roost, their numbers built incrementally. First there were one or two, then a gap, then another one, and then suddenly three together. By the time Gos and I reached halfway home, it was all very much like watching a 1960s nature documentary about the Serengeti. They were everywhere. Herds of them. They kept to the paths, though, which was good, because I could position myself with the gos in a triangle of rough grass and chickweed just after the path diverged. We stood there in the gloom and watched joggers come up, split, and then stream past us. Of course they didn’t see us. We were motionless; I have a suspicion now that joggers can’t see things unless they move...

Read the whole thing here.