Night Hunter

An appropriate find for the season, and we can infer that this aggressive-looking individual is making its way home from its most important night of its year. They are nocturnal hunters at all times - and it is a surprise to find one on the path in daylight - but last night must be the big one for "The Devil's Coach-horse". They look the part - bristling with malevolence and spite, raising their abdomen in an unnatural curl, like a scorpion, moving in disquieting, unpredictable fits and starts. Even for a human, their threatening air and confrontational stance is easy to read

They have a couple of tricks that I have read about but not experienced: large, strong mandibles that are big enough to deliver a painful bite, and two white glands at the end of the abdomen - visible in this picture - that can emit a foul-smelling liquid (from both ends of the animal!), intended to be noxious enough to put a predator off its lunch

Its diet as described by Buglife is a recipe for a perfect Shakespearian potion: "slugs, worms, spiders, woodlice...and carrion". For good measure, it passes its prey through its digestive system more than once. It's not hard to see why this beetle has been associated with the devil and magic since the middle-ages. The power of its aggression, that I felt myself, was interpreted as an ability to deliver a curse

We found an unfamiliar stretch of coastline to explore. Gusting winds, unruly multicoloured seas, swollen streams, mud, dramatic skies, many rainbows, a Celtic saint keeping watch over a village, twisted folded rocks, a deep cave with a sink-hole offering a view of the sky, a pathway with a vaulted green leaf-arch over it strewn with beech leaves in perfect autumn browns, wildness everywhere. We did not feel in any way cursed