Quartering owl

I was lucky enough to see a barn owl while undertaking a commission for Anthony Edwards to photograph his fishery on the Avon. When returning to their car one evening, one of the fishery syndicate members had mentioned he had seen an owl quartering a field next to the river. Last Monday by early evening I had completed my target images of the day, photographing Anthony's house from distant viewpoints, so decided to walk around the fishery hoping to see the owl. On a previous occasion I had spotted a Little owl on a post, but it was some distance away and the only photographs I could get were of the owl looking the other way before it noticed me and flew off. However, on this evening I saw a Barn owl quartering the field and managed a few distance shots in the failing light. Quick reactions and a long lens achieved a reasonable result but with many wasted shots as the auto focus struggled to focus on the fast moving bird rather than the dominant woodland background. This and another shot shows the owl in the context of its hunting territory. My other shot I might use for the book shows the bird more clearly against the background of the field but less of the face which is such a distinctive feature of the species.