There’s a quiet kind of magic that lives along the burn that winds its way through the campsite. It’s not loud or showy. You have to be patient, observant—willing to notice the small things. For me, that magic has taken the form of a heron.
Every day, like clockwork, it appears.
I’ll be going about something ordinary—walking in the tent field the bank, drinking a cup of tea, or just looking out across the bridge—and there it is. Tall, still, impossibly elegant. It moves with that slow, deliberate grace, like time doesn’t quite touch it in the same way it does the rest of us. For a few moments, everything feels calmer just watching it.
Naturally, I’ve tried to capture it. Many times.
pulling my phone out my pocket, held my breath, convinced myself this would be the moment. But somehow, it always knows. A slight shift, a cautious glance—and then it’s gone. A few powerful wingbeats and it disappears downstream, leaving me with nothing but the memory and a slightly blurry photo of empty water.
It became a bit of a running joke with myself. The heron: always there, yet never mine to keep.
And then Kelly came to stay.
Just one night.
No long build-up, no daily ritual of trying and failing. Just a casual visit. The kind where you point out the river and say, “Oh, and sometimes there’s a heron if you’re lucky,” already half-expecting it not to show.
But of course, it did.
And of course, Kelly got the photo.
No dramatic chase. No careful stalking. Just a simple moment—there it was, and there she was, phone ready. Click. Captured perfectly, as if it had been waiting all along for someone else to come and do what I couldn’t.
I couldn’t even be annoyed. Well, maybe just a little.
Mostly, it was funny. Perfectly, typically funny.
Because the truth is, the heron was never really about the photo. It’s about those quiet, repeated moments. The familiarity of seeing something wild choose to return, day after day. The reminder that not everything can be owned or captured, no matter how many times you try.
Still… I wouldn’t mind getting that photo one day.
But somehow, I think the heron and I have an understanding.
It shows up.
I watch.
And that’s enough.
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