Was it due to the poem?

CC sent me a poem she had written which I loved, and so I have her permission to post it here.

THE HARE’S TALE

The snowshoe hare reads alone all afternoon

– takes a break, rests like a snake sunning

on a hot summer rock, except it is snowing

and cold and the wind is blowing and growling

like a grumpy bear, or howling like a hungry

coyote hunting for hares. She is not on a rock

but in a cave-like hollow in a hawthorn bush

safe and secure. Even so, the hare shivers

 at the thought of coyotes, feels goose-pimples 

the prey's primal fear of being found, chased,

cornered, pounced on, killed and eaten

with teeth and claws. She’s safe, she knows

in this protected place, snuggles

on the bed of dead grass and leaves, avoids

with care, fallen twigs with spiky thorns

while more snow falls, gently as feathers

white flakes falling, white

as her new soft winter parka, earmuffs tipped

with black. And she reads a book on mythology,

on loan from the library, reads the ancient tale

of a hare who ends up on the moon.

And if the snow

stops soon, and the clouds clear, the moon

will be full tonight – she'll dance, painting

tracks on the field's white, unmarked canvas.

Elly Nobbs

This touched me deeply.

The next time I went to the Reserve, I was gifted some exceptional moments of proximity to not a snowshoe hare but a brown hare.

Right in the middle, I was switching off the video to take some pictures when she stretched like a cat! So wonderful, but I missed it.

I was in the shade of the trees and the contrast is so great that she clearly couldn't see me at all. And the wind was blowing toward me: ideal!

I wanted to get past the hare without her running off, but I trod on a twig.

It's funny as the last time I was there I had thought that I might find a hare if I walked into that very field. No joy then, but this was better. I went to see if I could find her form but instead I saw a pheasant hiding.

I knew what it was, but when the bird started up squawking and burst into the sky on whistling wings I was still startled out of my skin!