Mid Flight

This morning I saw this bird on top of a flag pole on two separate occasions. I totally missed it the first time round and this was as good as it got on the second attempt.

You see I would stop the car, go to the boot and get the camera but as soon as I would point the camera at it it would take flight.

It looked like a owl when I saw it first but now looking at it here larger i'm not so sure so if anyone can enlighten me I would be grateful. Sorry about the pic quality but I was tracking it at the time and it was fairly shifting.