It has been like a summer's afternoon, bright and warm, but the sun is already low in the sky as I climb over the stile and take the uneven, grassy path leading out on to the marsh. The sun is a large fuzzy disc, dissipated and weak, sinking towards the grey-blanketed Downs. Bushes and trees are slowly coalescing into the black, cutout silhouettes of a shadowy backdrop. I pick a spot in the middle of the marsh and crouch down by some brambles.
I hear the short-eared owls first. Two, short, coarse, rising barks echo across the marsh. It sounds like a female's contact call, which I've only heard on their breeding grounds on the Scottish islands before. The "shorties" are occasional visitors to Sussex marshes, heaths and coasts, usually in late autumn, sometimes staying all winter before returning north, but this month groups of two, three or more have been seen all across Sussex, including four birds here at Waltham.
Two owls float and flap low over the marsh. Their broad, stiff wings fall and rise in short, light stabs. The leading bird is pale cream and brown and the one following slightly darker. As they turn, they flash their white underwings with distinctive black commas.
One bird hunts and the other gives chase, calling again. They fly warily around each other, closing and drifting apart, rising and falling, slowly spiralling in wide circles like a mobile. They drift across the marsh. One flaps over a bush towards me. It stares, bright orange eyes surrounded by smudged black makeup, glaring in the dying light before flying past. Short-eared owls always seem so startled by the world around them. Or perhaps it's defiance. I watch the owls hunt and chase, calls still ringing out, until they disappear. I walk back carefully in the growing gloom. It suddenly feels cold.