The fox appears out of nowhere. One moment Darsham Marshes is ours alone and the next it is his – slinking over the saturated ground with a fluidity matched only by the movement of his shoulders.

The sun has been Scandinavian-low all day but now it is creeping closer towards the treeline. Wave after wave of autumnal light breaks over a Suffolk landscape criss-crossed by the dark veins of dykes, adding golden fire to the big dog fox’s flame-red coat.

My wife and I hardly dare to breathe. Although the fox is some distance away we can clearly see his broad head and the distinctive vulpine mask of his face. His neck is already cloaked in a thick mane of winter fur.

I realise with a shock that this is probably the first time I have really seen a fox. There have, of course, been previous encounters. But whether skittering across a road away from headlights or standing with burning yellow eyes on my old Brighton rubbish bin, these were always meetings where I had rudely blundered into the fox’s routine – had crashed in on nature – and been rewarded with only the briefest glimpse of russet red and a disappearing rump.

This is different. We had been waiting for the barn owls who regularly ghost across this marsh to hunt and, as such, we had been still, silent, and relatively hidden from view. But also, I notice with relief, we are upwind and there’s little chance the fox will catch the scent of the goose-pimpled and muddy tourists loitering in his terrain.

The fox is now skirting down a hedge heading for a copse about 100 metres away. He looks confident, relaxed even, ignoring the ratcheting call of a blackbird and the bovine stares coming from the cattle that graze this marsh.

Then suddenly, as if a whistle has been blown, he stops. Ears twitching he drops into a half crouch, his white-tagged brush held straight behind him. At first I think he has somehow sensed us; has heard our whispered adulation, our Goretex rustle or the plastic pop of a binocular lens cap. But then he’s off again, still looking ahead at the same patch of trees, trotting with assurance and stealth over the marsh and out of view.

We grin excitedly at each other and instinctively move to follow him, to continue to be part of his world. But the path around the wetland is heavy going. The cattle here clearly hate getting their feet wet too and their passage has churned much of the track into shin-deep mud. In places they have left pot-like casts of their lower legs.

Changing tack, we try to emulate the fox, stepping off the path and on to the saturated wetland. We jump towards clumps of taller grass, hoping their roots will be strong enough to hold us. But with each clumsy leap the dark water sponges out of the ground and over the tops of our boots. We are getting nowhere fast.

Retracing our steps we hit the path and decide to strike out for home and dinner. From behind us in the darkening copse, comes an explosion of noise – the helicoptering whir of wings and a hoarse alarm call. Two hen pheasants break cover, but the noise continues.

The fox, too, has dinner on his mind.

Matt Gaw, 2016