Those 'noxious voles' and Tyto Alba

There are some days when I can arrive home and conjure up a posting for the blog straight away and there are other days when I simply cannot be objective about any images I have captured or get my head around what I have seen. This is the latter, I was disappointed with the images and felt the birds were too far away and unworthy of any attention, but a month later and less emotion and there's a certain barn owl savoir faire...

These images, taken on 28 January will never compete with the 500mm lens and those fabulous photos that others capture (for which I will remain envious) and perhaps it is a deep Freudian excuse but often my images relate more than the detail and hopefully reflect 'the essence' as I appear to keep referring to it... basically a record of the day and what I saw and no more.

The simple reality was I was driving down the road (which I do regularly) much later in the day than normal and I twitched and twitched again, those hidden sensors (in reality out of the corner of my eye) clocked pale movement in the right sort of location. Now was I going to simply drive past to my destination... what would you do? (and I've finally learned not to go anywhere without the camera... for just these very encounters).

No award winning photos but perhaps a reflection of these fabulous birds – many of you will know the detail and have much better images... but you know where I've been. The light was low and then the sun broke as it sank below the horizon with that wonderful 'orange cast' and sitting on a post was just the right thing to do... I had one stuck up my

One lesson I have learned, no point looking skyward for barn owls, look low, just above the height of the grass; all those wasted years...