Barnie

Our wild weather reversed today: in the Vale of Evesham there was thick fog, while the weather forecast for the top of the scarp claimed that it would be a sunny afternoon up there. I didn't believe this, until the desperate messages of enquiry I sent out to various owling friends produced a reply from Hillyblips: she'd just gone past the Broadway Tower, she said, and it was sunny there. This was all I needed to get me into the car and off up the Edge - and sure enough, half way up I suddenly found myself above the fog line and driving into brilliant sun.

The lane by the owl field was packed, unsurprisingly, but there wasn't any owl action happening on that side of the field just then, so I hot-footed it round to the north side. I was promptly hailed by HelenJG, who was out for some owl therapy with Mr HJG - it was nice to see them both there again after so long. There were two shorties sitting some distance away on the cross wall, one vocalising quite loudly, which I was told had been there for some time. It was a while yet before they decided to fly, but almost as soon as they went up this Barn Owl joined them, and gave me my best photo opportunity of the day. The Short-eared Owls kept their distance today – from me at least - and most of my photos of them contain more context than owl. I may add one or two to this post later, when I've had more time to sort through them and choose some I like, but as I regularly tell people that I never get a half-decent shot of a barn owl, this evening I'm quite happy to feature this one.