Haibun: A Special Encounter

Knockan Crag Nature Reserve

a smiling blue and white whippet and a smiling black whippet side by side on a fern-covered crag
a stag peering over the rim of Knockan Crag above the Moyne Thrust

A passing shower brings welcome freshness, more greenness to the grass. Water cascades from the top into a thousand tiny pools. We hear the ‘plop’ of frogs leaping. Careful where we place our feet, we continue the climb. Eivor and Pearl grind to a halt, star-struck. We know what they’ve seen. They ask whether we can see it too. We blink and tell them we believe them.

stag on the hill
greeting us in peace
a kindred spirit

© Xenia Tran

two smiling whippets on a fern-covered hillside

If you look very closely, you can see the stag peering over the rim of the crag in the top right-hand corner of the second photograph.

Wishing you all a wonderful Tuesday,

with love from Eivor, Pearl and Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Settings: f/2.8 – 1/400 s – ISO 160 and f/4 – 1/800 s – ISO 200.

Nancy Merrill’s A Photo A Week Challenge: Unexpected

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This poem features in Between Heather and Grass. If you haven’t read the book yet, feel free to take a peek inside:

look inside feature for Between Heather and Grass
Look inside …

Author: whippetwisdom

The stories, poems and photographs on this blog are the original creative work of Xenia Tran. Inspired by life in the Scottish Highlands and in awe of nature she gives voice to the wisdom of her adopted and fostered whippets.

67 thoughts on “Haibun: A Special Encounter”

    1. Thank you so much for your kind words dear Liesbet 🙂💜 They’re curious about squirrels and deer, very calm around birds and will always check in with us to see if it’s OK. When they see a stag they’re completely in awe – it’s an animal they greatly admire 🙂💖🦌 xxx

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    1. Thank you so much for your kind words dear Cathy, it was so lovely and Eivor and Pearl were over the moon seeing one of their heroes 🙂💜🦌 Hope you’re having a great day and much love to you and Finn from all of us here 🤗🐾💖🐾 xxx

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  9. I feel the cool just looking at the photo’s green….and also the fresh respite from the passing shower. What a site that must have been and for them to stop and see and feel that presence so far away!

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    1. Thank you so much for your kind words dear Lillian, it was lovely to enjoy that freshness for a while 🙂💦 Eivor and Pearl are sighthounds and they can see so much further than we can. They would have caught the scent of the stag too and from their expressions I could tell they were looking at one of their heroes 🙂💖🦌 xxx

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  10. Hi Xenia, Eivor and Pearl! Your photos are so inviting, and I enjoyed the freshness of the shower – I can see its green handiwork in your photos. I love the sounds you evoke: the water cascading and the frogs. And what a joy to encounter a stag!

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    1. Thank you so much for your kind words dear Jane 🙂💜 Eivor and Pearl are very good and check with us first. When they get a bit over-excited we call them over and put them on the lead (especially when we see rabbits). They really look up to the stags, as if they’re seeing a rock star, and they seem too star-struck to approach them 🙂💖🦌 xxx

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      1. Then they are much better behaved than Finbar. He chases anything and everything, deer included, and he listens to no one but the god of the chase whispering in his tiny brain 🙂

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  16. The way you captured the pooches looking at the stag, then when they looked to you, then spying the stag in the corner of the photo, what a wonderful vicarious experience for reader of your post. Very daoist.

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  27. Great to be back and experiencing your amazing posts . Stunning images, creative haiku and adventurous whippets. Just as well they are not Afghan Hounds Xenia, they would have been off on the hunt.

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    1. Thank you so much for your kind words dear Denis and it’s so lovely to see your beautiful haiku and photographs again too! Thankfully Eivor and Pearl are very good. A saluki cross we adopted many years ago ran upsides deer once in a ‘hey this is fun, you run just like me’ kind of way. After that we kept him close by when there were deer around, just to be safe 🙂🐾🐾

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  28. Frog SKiN DMT
    Antlers Raise
    Horns Praise
    A Dance Will Do
    A Song Will Bring
    Even More Sight Without
    Frog
    Skin
    or DMT
    Smiles Reminds
    me of all the Days
    Folks Ask me What
    i am taking actually
    Begging me for
    it and all i
    have to
    offer
    is a Free
    Dance That Will
    take them to the same
    Escape yet found and never lost..
    Haha and then there are the Conspiracy
    Theorists at the Dance Hall who think my
    Shades Automatically Mean Some TV Show for the CIA..
    Hehe
    Frog
    SKiN
    DMT
    in a World
    Like this
    Already Tripping hehe..;)

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  29. Pingback: 2019: Favourite Moments Through the Seasons – Whippet Wisdom – a Highland Journey

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