Different day, but the same tree and no doubt the same bird.  The tree it’s in is one of the ponderosa that rings the foxes ‘play circle’.  That space just across the creek is proving to be a pretty interesting activity zone…

 

All summer long I’ve been watching these guys fly around the woods on our place, but only at dusk and always just fleeting glances.  Once I even saw a pair that were weaving their way through tree trunks and branches late one evening in near total silence.  But today was the first day I had a chance to capture a picture.

For the past several weeks I’ve noticed a collection of owl pellets at the base of one of the trees here.  These are not poops but (apparently) regurgitations of stuff they can’t or won’t digest.  Yesterday I was looking hard around the truck of this tree looking at these things when I looked up to see where in the tree the owl might have been when throwing this stuff up.  I was more than a little shocked to see him right up there looking back at me.  I didn’t have a camera with me at the time so when I was out there again today, camera in hand, I looked up and sure enough (s)he was right there in the same place.

I don’t know why but seeing it there just feels like Fall in the air.

 

Barn Owl

A set of photos for today.  Most of these were taken in the last week or two, but some from last Fall; most from here near the house, but some from the Great Smoky Mountains Nat. Park.

 

Yellow Leaves

 

Woods

 

Lake

 

Home from Boise

 

Water

 

So much is left uncaptured and exist now only as a moments that are past.  Here’s hoping all of you have Fall pictures in your mind’s eye that rival anything I’ve seen.