Close-up

I arrived at the owl field at about 1.30pm, and was told by the only other chap parked on the lane that there had been four owls up at 11am, but none since. But as I reached the crossroads and turned up what only a local would describe (and then ironically) as the main road, I could already see a Shortie over towards the coppice on the north side of the big field. Then several lenses in front of me swung round through 180° towards the smaller sheep field across the road, and I realised that a second owl must be quartering it.

I spent the next hour and a half trotting from one side of the main road to the other, depending who was flying at any given time. There were certainly three, probably four Short-eared Owls working the big field, and two over the sheep field, but all of them spent quite a lot of time on the ground, and as it was a misty afternoon it was easy to miss the point at which they decided to take off again - so there was a lot of swivelling around going on, and peering through the mist, and checking other photographers in case they'd seen something I hadn't. At 3pm I checked the sky, which had brightened earlier but was now closing in again, looked at my shutter count, decided that 600 photos was enough fun for one afternoon, and firmly walked away. As I drove down into the Vale of Evesham the sky cleared, so it's possible that there was a sunset up on the scarp after all, but I think it's nice to leave some things for other people to photograph. Ahem.

Anyway, this is Smudgy Owl, who was very much in charge of the sheep field and did some lovely hunting passes across it. I don't know if this will turn out to be my best shot of the day, but it'll surely be one of the closest. I haven't had time to work through more than the first half-hour's worth of shots so far, but when I've looked at the rest I may well post a few to my Facebook page, in which case I'll come back and add a link to them here.