Eastern Screech Owl

We had a major dearth of birds on our trip today - but at one point as we were saying "there's nothing much here this morning" someone spotted a  bald eagle's nest with a bald eagle on a branch above it way across the gorge. And after we'd all stood there and ogled that for about 15 minutes someone else noticed that RIGHT THERE on our side about 20 feet from us at eye level was a screech owl. Just sleeping and figuring we hadn't noticed him. Which we actually hadn't... until then. This was one of the last shots I took of him before we tore ourselves away and you can see he finally had opened an eye.

Any day when an owl is spotted is a perfect birding day for me.