Sunset with Moon (and Owl)

The day was mostly spent at school generating an immense pile of paper from out of the photocopier, but was bookended by two wildlife events of note.

There is no photo documentation of the first. While drinking my coffee there was suddenly an immense racket of crows directly in front of the house. There were about twenty of them swooping and diving and screaming in alarm - it was really something. I actually called upstairs to check if my wife was throwing food out of the upstairs window or something. I stepped out onto the porch and there was a hawk on the ground with a crow in its clutches being dive bombed and mobbed by all the others. I think I startled it, and it released the crow and flew off into the woods with the whole crowd in pursuit. I honestly felt bad for disrupting the action. The hawk wasn't any bigger than the crow and I figure it must have been some hungry to attempt such an audacious maneuver. We've got enough crows around to spare a few, if you ask me.

The second event happened when I got home. I was taking the groceries out of the back of the car and was struck by the beautiful sunset, with the crescent moon shining above the tree line. I put everything down, got out my phone, and stepped away from the car to take some photographs. It was after my second panoramic shot that I realized our neighborhood owl was sitting calmly on top of a small tree close by. You can see her in the main image if you look close. So I took a photo of her too, which is the extra. We watched each other and the sunset for a minute, before she turned suddenly and dropped out of the tree and into the long grass. After some rustling around she reappeared and flew directly past me and off into the woods. A very surprising and satisfying encounter.