Just as we were giving up on the wolves, they turned up again.
It was 0300 and Mark and “H” were off filming the snowy owls feeding their young with freshly hunted lemming – or at least trying to. Despite the fact that Mark had spent nine hours in the hide, he’d only seen the male come back twice with food for the chicks.
I was looking after camp as usual and a good job too!
I was sat in the tent, deeply into this book about sailing around the world, when a noise pulled me back into the land of the living.
I looked back towards the entrance of the tent, and who was there but Lucy. She’d come back to see me after all this time.
I quickly grabbed my camera, altered the lens and got out the other side of the tent to see that she and two companions were nosing about in the trailer.
They all started to run off, despite my gentle greetings, but it wasn’t long before Lucy returned and we managed to spend the next hour-and-a-half in each others’ company.
It was really magical, just what I needed to inspire me again. It had been so long since we last saw them that we’d almost given up.
At 0430, Mark and “H” turned up from the hide, and having passed the wolf den on the way back, knew they were around again.
Mark, as ever, immediately got the camera into action and was capturing bits and pieces of behaviour.
By 0600 the wolves had all gone back to the den for a sleep, so we took our chance to sleep as well.
Rising at 1400 turned out to be perfect timing.
Having had breakfast, washed down with some tea, the wolves were on the move again. They passed our camp and headed westward, with Mark and “H” following.