A Field Diary — Volume Two
Chapter One — Spring
04 March 2026 · North Clover Hollow
The frost lifted before sunrise, leaving the meadow combed in pale gold. I crossed the lower hedgerow with a lantern, watching for the first signs of the warren stirring — the small ovals of pressed grass, the breath-fog rising near the burrow mouth.
The warren matriarch I have called Plum emerged at twelve past six, paused on the lip, and listened for a long minute before stepping out. She is older now, her left ear notched from a winter that should have taken her. She did not run when I approached.
In her wake came four kits — three sandy, one impossibly white — testing the cold ground with paws that had never known it. I have logged thirty-seven entries since November; this is the first I have wanted to keep without revising.
The burrow itself has widened on its western face. Soil from a fresh excavation is heaped in a low fan, the colour of dark cinnamon. The clover above it is just beginning to green — by the next moon it will be a patch of new pasture, and the warren will have made it.
I left a small offering of carrot greens at the threshold, as is my custom. Plum took them in once I was a polite distance away. The quest, such as it is, continues — measured in soft footfalls and the slow widening of doorways.
Field note: the white kit favours its right flank slightly. Watch on next visit.
Interlude — Eight Field Observations
Two adult does, three juveniles. Grazing fresh clover at 06:42. Calm.
One large male, sandy with white blaze. Marking near a beech root. Alert posture.
Four kits at burrow threshold, mother nearby. First daylight emergence. Tentative.
Fresh tracks across the muddy crossing, paired and overlapping. Two animals, light prints.
Solitary doe foraging on dandelion shoots. Twelve minutes observed. Unhurried.
Three juveniles in play, hopping between hollow and root. First evening foray.
Excavation widened by ~12cm on western face. Soil fresh. Plum at work.
Plum with three kits, white kit recovered. Right flank no longer favoured. Healed.
Chapter Two — Late Spring
12 April 2026 · North Burrow Ridge
Six weeks on, and the warren has settled into a rhythm that is, in its own way, magnificent. The four kits — now nearly half-grown — emerge as a flotilla each morning, the white one always last, always paused on the lip a second longer than the others, as though gathering its courage from the lintel itself.
Plum has taken to sitting on the small rise above the western mouth, watching the lower meadow while the young feed. It is, I think, the closest thing to satisfaction I have observed in a wild animal. She does not flick her ears at my approach now. She does not even look up from the clover.
I have begun to suspect that this warren is older than I first thought. The soil shows the layered cinnamons of many seasons; the side tunnels branch and branch again. The map I have been keeping in the back of this volume now needs a separate sheet for the eastern wing alone.
There is something quiet to record about being trusted by a creature you cannot speak to. The clover lane below the ridge has worn into a faint, true path between our two stations — hers at the lip, mine on the flat stone beside the hawthorn. I have not asked for that path. It is the warren's gift.
The fern fronds along the eastern face are unfurling now, and the meadow is loud with all the small green sounds. The next entry will be longer. There is a second warren rumoured on the southern slope, and I will go and listen for it tomorrow.
Field note: bring the longer notebook. This one is nearly full.
Sign-off — Volume Two
The quest continues,
the field remembers.
— kept by the keeper of clover lanes, by candle and by hand