Barn Owl

My Leadership Conference finished at 1pm and, as it happened, The Man had also wandered around Harlow Carr as much as he wanted to. That being the case, I waited for him to pick me up to save me an uphill walk and a bus journey to get back to the caravan.

I've had a great three days here and I was keen to use the rest of the day to do things with The Man. Yesterday he had had a wonderful time at a small reserve near the caravan site so I suggested going and spending a couple of hours there. Once into the walk on the reserve, I realised just how tired I was and needed to turn back.

It was then that we saw the barn owl! The men in the hide had been telling us there were 5 on the reserve that hunted during the day. That gave me the encouragement I needed to stay longer. It would have helped if I'd remembered to put on a jumper: Barbour sleves are very cold on bare arms in winter!
 
Well, try as I may, I didn't manage a good, crisp shot of either of the 2 barn owls flying around in front of us. I've never photographed a wild barn owl before. The one I've chosen is in the grass because this is something I've never seen before.

I've put my other reasonable owl shot in Extras, also a juvenile swan to remind me of the local telling us how distressing it was to have watched the brood being successfully reared but now the male was constantly chasing the youngsters away.

The other extras are of Canada geese fighting for territory! One of the day's best shots is amongst those.