A Surprise Welcome

As I left work tonight, I felt satisfied that I'd already taken a rare blip during the day and that box was ticked for today.

But as I arrived home and drew up my car in our drive to reverse back, this barn owl was perched right in front of me in full glare of the headlights. It's common for us to see the owls driving up our track but usually they're off as the car approaches, but for whatever reason, this one stayed.

I took a couple of useless shots with my carry camera then with the engine still running, got out, ran upstairs for my main camera and got back within a few minutes and was able to take quite a few shots as I tried to find the best settings. Although this is quite dark, it was the clearest - if I'd known it would hang around I might have got the tripod.

I think I caught sight of another owl flying near by which triggered this one to fly up to a higher branch, which I couldn't shine the car lights at, but it was impressed it stayed as long as it did! Not sure I'll get this chance again...