Shore notes 06/03/26

A skylark trills from high enough to be invisible. Green fronds are jostled and my ears are whipped by an inconsistent wind as I leave the sea-facing lower bounds of Maker Heights to march down a path and swing my legs over a farmer’s gate. I am exploiting Friday’s emerging sunshine, rare after months of heavy grey and rain, to drop makeshift pinhole cameras around a nearby relic - a late 19th century coastal defence battery that is coated with fern and ivy and thick roots. In my bag are beer cans that have been cut, cleaned, spray painted black inside, punctured, loaded with photographic paper and sealed with gaffer tape.

I cross the field, descend steep overgrown steps sheltered by trees, cross in front of a small hut and curved concrete walls, and enter the battery’s tunnel, padding gently between forest debris and fabric and rusted trash. The world shrinks. Daylight is condensed into cold stillness, and water drips a beat on a floor grate. I follow the wide brick and concrete corridor, lit at either end by broken gateways, and turn into one of the black chambers that branch from it. I can see nothing in this room but a thin pillar of light piercing its centre, and I want to know whether, given enough time, a pinhole camera can capture anything it illuminates. I know from previous trips with powerful torches that there are strange objects assembled in the far corner - a 1960s style cooker, a car door, logs, a huge metal box. I tap the torch on my phone into action to avoid hurting myself on any of the scattered randomness that litters the floor. It doesn’t light much.

In the nearest corner and deep in the blackness, I locate a nook that might make a suitable resting place for a beer can camera. As I move to position it, I hear a shuffling noise that I can’t locate. It repeats, very slowly, usually in pairs - sha-sha. I check back in the corridor but there is nothing making noise there except the water’s drip. I return to the darkness, wondering if there is a person or creature walking over the roof of the building, shifting greenery. I hold my breath.

Sha-sha. Sha-sha. Sha-sha.

I point the phone torch above me, revealing two huge peacock butterflies attached to the concrete. One is still, its wide red wings closed together, pointing one round fake eye at me. Is it dead? Asleep? On the other, closer to my face on the low ceiling, the wings open wide. Then they close back in. And then out again, audibly crunching like dried leaves, with an unnatural slowness. Sha-sha, sha-sha. Something tightens in my stomach. It is a creaking movement, mechanical like a zombie, which feels puppeteered beyond the creature’s consciousness. And it is so impossibly loud. I whisper-sing “I don’t like this, I don’t like this” as I rip the gaffa tape from the side of the beer can, place it in its alcove, and point the now-exposed dot of a hole in the vague direction of the creepy stuff in the opposite corner. And then I speed out of there.

I thought butterflies died in the winter, and that only caterpillars survived. This, apparently, is not always the case. This is not the first time I’ve seen them here, but I assumed the one I saw before was dead. Some google searches later, I find out that not only do peacock butterflies hibernate winter long, they produce sonic and ultrasonic sounds when faced with potential predators while they do. I have been warned. I may not return to that room for a while.