On the wing

It was sunny this aft so I went back to the spot where I saw a barn owl on Monday, a bit earlier this time. Nothing around but I'd set the camera up for a snap shot and couldn't help a practice swing through a pair of mallard ducks, preferring this single one in the light.

A little while later I saw the barn owl at the far side of the marsh. Meantime I had a cow problem. Pippa was attracting some unwelcome attention in the drier part of the meadow. We waded over the marsh and hoped they wouldn't follow. I'd seen the bird drop and was surprised that I was within yards of it before it took off with a mouse in its talons. I shot some frames, rapid fire, but this was the only one that recorded, the rest were blank for some reason. The owl went up in to a tree, I bent to fiddle with the camera, looked up and it had gone. 

When the sun had set, walking back to the car, negotiating several more frisky bullocks intent on doggicide, I saw a couple more barn owls - three in the space of a few hundred yards, just like it used to be before last year's floods. It's good to see them back.