Brushstrokes in the sky

This is the second morning in the last three days that I've posted my "daily three" very late in the morning. After getting to bed each night around 3:00 a.m.or 3:30 a.m., I overslept till about 11:00 a.m. again today, which messes up my day. The reason for today's lateness is that I spent an amazing day out yesterday with friends Cathy and Terry, south of Calgary, and then got to bed so late after getting things done on my computer. I had found an e-mail on my computer around 12:45 a.m.yesterday, just as I was about to turn off my computer for the night. Did I want to go birding tomorrow (i.e. yesterday) and, if so, to meet at 8:00 a.m.. A full day of excitement and enjoyment left me tired out, but so happy. Can you believe that we saw 17 owls yesterday? SEVENTEEN! I didn't photograph quite every single one, but my friends will let me know exactly how many of each owl we found, once they've gone through their photos. It was something like 10 Snowy Owls and 7 Great Horned Owls. The closest Snowy Owl was seen when it was early evening and the light had gone, and my photos are all blurry. The other owls were little more than a tiny speck in the far, far distance, but I still managed to get some kind of shot of some of them, using 48x zoom plus cropping. This sunset photo was taken at 5:18 p.m.. One minute earlier, we had taken photos of a distant Great Horned Owl, sitting on a fence post. Eight minutes later, we were photographing a beautiful male Snowy Owl perched on a power pole - the fading light made even half-decent photos impossible (with my little point-and- shoot, anyway). So much fun just to see, though!!!