In the pink

Owling days are here again.

As the light was lovely this morning I went up to the owl field as soon as I could get away, and arrived - very hopeful - just a little after noon. Then I got out of the car and the biting wind hit me, and my hopes were immediately dashed, because Short-eared Owls use their acute hearing to pinpoint their prey while hunting and don't like windy conditions. I bumped into a birding friend and had a chat, and we were both agreed that if the wind persisted things weren't looking good. He tried the north side of the field for a while, but had no luck there either, while I walked up and down the lane photographing anything that would allow it, and trying to keep my circulation moving.

I'd set 3pm as my pumpkin hour, but just about then the wind decreased, so I thought I'd hang on a bit longer. Around 4pm Hillyblips turned up, and as we hadn't seen each other in a good while we had a very enjoyable chat. This kept me loitering in the lane long enough to witness the first owl of the day go up, just a few minutes before sunset. Hilly did much better than me today, managing to catch our shortie in the last of the golden light, but both of my shots were taken after sun down. I'm not complaining though: any owl is better than no owl.

Owling mantra of the day: there's always tomorrow.