Some white patches have eyes : )

Wasn't sure whether this was fit to post, but thought it might give an idea of how far away most of these Snowy Owls really are. This is a 48x zoomed image and then cropped. Love it when the sun shines on the stubble in the fields, turning it golden.

After nine days at home, making sure my stitches from minor surgery healed properly, an invitation by friends Cathy and Terry to go birding that day was welcomed with open arms - as it always is! What a great day we had, searching SE of the city, and finding some really neat birds. Most were impossible to photograph because of distance, but also because we had "heat wave" distortion all day long, making it difficult to get photos that were sharp. It was one of those amazing days, out of the house from 7:15 a.m. till about 8:15 in the evening. By the end of the day, we had seen a total count of 19 owls, from three species - 8 Short-eared Owls, 8 Snowy Owls, 2 Great Horned Owls and one mystery owl. We couldn't decide if the latter was a Snowy Owl or a Short-eared Owl, as it was perched on top of a metal silo, way off in the distance (photo posted a couple of days ago, in which the coloured spots from the sunburst lead ones eye to it). An excellent birding friend reckons it's a Snowy Owl. We missed a good photo opp with one of the Short-eared Owls, when we were pulled over, further down the road than several other photographers. We did see one down on the ground near the edge of the road in a different place, though, hiding in the dried grasses, but, again, my photo is blurry.

Also saw a Prairie Falcon perched on top of a metal silo and lots of Horned Larks - the latter constantly in flight or down on the road ahead of us. The "heat wave" distortion made it impossible to get anything but rather blurry shots of these, but I might be able to slightly improve one of them enough to post later.

As you will no doubt agree, it was an amazing day! Thanks so much, Cathy and Terry, for another rewarding day (which had started off rather slowly down in that area). Lots of fun!

This morning, 10 March 2014, the temperature is 1C, and it looks like wet flurries could be expected for later this afternoon and scattered flurries this evening. Yesterday's wonderfully mild weather melted a fair bit of our accumulated snow.