Rim-lit

I really didn't want to go to the owl field today, but the siren call of the shorties proved too hard to resist. It was just as bad as I'd expected it to be, with cars and people everywhere, and tempers visibly fraying (notably mine). 

On the plus side, I bumped into first Sheol and then Hillyblips, and it was very pleasant to be able to chat with both of them. Also on the plus side, HB told me that the site was quiet compared with the scrum she'd witnessed there yesterday, making me profoundly glad I'd elected to go to Draycote instead. 

On the minus side, HB also told me that she reckoned there were at least eight owls flying yesterday, so that she hardly knew which way to point the camera - while today there were no more than a couple up, probably outnumbered about twenty to one by the togs. Also on the minus side, and crucially, I made a serious of poor positional choices, and found myself in the wrong place pretty much all afternoon. 

In the end HB and I got the same owl, strongly rim-lit by the setting sun, but while Hilly has opted for the vole shot, which I also have, I've elected to go with the contre-jour stretch (which I'm sure she has as well). The same owl did a flypast along the wall where we'd been standing fifteen minutes earlier, eliciting some bad language from both of us, but a friend who'd been there at the time told us later that it hadn't been close enough for decent images. If you check out my second photo you'll see that it certainly wasn't generating much excitement among the watchers.