I made this Conceptual Portrait for someone who loves this place and would love to see a wolf. It’s not the UK and there are wolves in the area.
It worries me, because they are not domesticated dogs. But it is possible to encounter a wolf, play with them and talk with them. David Attenborough does it on television. How curious, you imitate their howl and they respond like it’s a conversation.
She loves anything to do with nature from tiny ants, frogs, newts, to cranes, buzzards, bees, owls, wood peckers, badgers, deer, trees, spring flowers, summer flowers, autumn, and snowy beauty.
“They are friends” I said to her “not things to kill” in regard to deer, Scottish eagles, and indeed the wolves. It’s true that not long ago we had to kill for survival, but not any more. There are food alternatives and doing it for fun is the worst.
There’s a scene in the film Ghost Dog where Forest Whittaker questions hunters. He tells them in ancient Japan, bears were considered sacred. “This ain’t the old ways” they say and he replies “sometimes it is.” Gun play occurs, but that’s not the point I’m making.
Some years ago I swam with a dolphin, if you can call it that. More like patting it in the icy North Sea then retreating to land, and a hot shower, before succumbing to hypothermia.
Another time in the Pyrenees I woke in the night frightened with a creature running around under my tent. I immediately thought rat, and rat teeth, but it was probably a water vole and they are adorable. Then in a Scottish glen, I saw large birds circle nearby above me. They weren’t eagles (I forget what they were) and had nests in the grass.
When I was a boy, the cutest thing was holding a small newt in the palm of my hand, watching it stretch its neck into warming sunshine. Now at the River Mersey I like swifts in the spring racing around me very close, but very fast, so they know they are safe.
Not for sale, she also likes tea and feeding birds in her garden.