As a general rule, human beings are diurnal creatures – active during the day and slumbering at night – with the exception of college students of course. Nighttime is not our time. When the sun goes down, taking us with it, the nocturnal animals of this world come to life and nowhere more spectacularly than in the Central African jungle.

Armed with nothing but flashlights and endless curiosity, three fellow researchers and I dared to step out of our niche and into that unfamiliar nocturnal realm. The night sky, what we could see of it through the leafy canopy, was dotted with twinkling stars. On the forest floor beneath we were bathed in a sea of darkness that lapped against the trunks of ancient trees.

I had thought the jungle was loud during the day, but now sapped of its colour, it became deafening. Tree hyraxes screeched from its depths like squealing newborn babies. Somewhere in the distance a forest franklin wailed like the Banshee. All around us cicadas’ droned to each other, claiming their right to a part in this haunting chorus.

ADVERTISEMENT

Into the night

And we crept on through the woods, deeper and deeper into the unknown. It felt like moving through the stomach of a whale – somewhere we really didn’t belong but were pushed forward nonetheless. Despite the miles and miles of wilderness all around us, the weight of the jungle made us feel claustrophobic, as if it was closing in on us. But we didn’t speak a word.

After a while we sat down on the soft forest floor and turned off our torches, which were no match for the darkness anyway. Then the night swallowed us whole. Without the meager light to give us direction we became lost and tangled like lianas in the sounds of the forest.

A firefly flickered in the distance giving off a faint, ghostly glow like a lost soul wandering through the night. Overhead, a bush-baby scurried between branches. Somewhere deep in the forest we could hear a larger beast moving about. Maybe it was an elephant munching on some foliage, or a gorilla out for a stroll. All the while, giant bats swooped around us, dodging us only at the very last second. It was terrifyingly tranquil.

Breaking the piece

Then we heard a tree fall. First it groaned as it began to topple then it crashed through its surrounding neighbors, until finally it hit the earth from which it had sprouted many hundreds of years ago. A momentary silence swept through the forest as if out of unified respect for the fallen giant. But, as in the daytime, life goes on and just as quickly as it had been silenced, the jungle erupted into chaos once more.

Looking back, I’d like to say that I felt ‘at one’ with the forest that night, clichéd and all as it may sound, but the truth is I was never more removed from it. It was clear that I was only an insignificant blemish on the face of nature. I had no part in that world, I don’t think any human ever will, but at least I got to quietly observe it in all of its eerie splendor – without being eaten by a leopard I might add!

Megan Pendred who hails from Mullingar, moved to Gabon in Central Africa after finishing her degree in Zoology. She’s sharing her experience with us as part of the Adventures in Africa series.