Saturday, April 23, 2011

A spring walk

 The farmer and I went for a lovely walk in the woods. That is him dimly visible, cutting a path through the stinging nettle.
 A mossy, fern covered bridge to get us across Pudding Creek. The water is murky and muddy, and I was very glad to make it to the other side!
 The last of the trilliums! I stumbled across another field full of them further on, but by them my camera battery had died.
Fortunately, I was able to get three shots of this before my camera died. We were slithering down a hillside, and I looked over and saw him perched on a branch in front of an old tree stump. I have never seen an owl in the wild this closely, and never in broad daylight. This totally made my day. He looked at us with such wise eyes, blinked a few times, and then swiveled his head so that we could just see the back. If you look at the bottom of the picture, you can barely make out his tail feathers. His back was facing us, so when he swiveled his head away from us, it was facing the right direction. In the next picture you will see he is looking right at us, which means his head is completely turned around, truly giving him eyes in the back of his head. I had heard that owls could do this, but never seen it for myself!
 The last shot before the camera died!
And, finally, home again!

3 comments:

  1. What a tremendous blessing! Your walk in the woods looked lovely, and the trilliums. But you got that close to an owl... and you got great pictures? What a treasure of a day!

    I enjoyed my quick trip to the valley. My daughter lives in Hillsboro. Where are you?

    Blessings, Debbie

    Blessings, Debbie

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow! I just noticed that I blessed you twice. : )
    Obviously this is going to be quite a day, enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
  3. That is fine-it is a Monday, I need all the help I can get.The owl was so cool! And I was indeed blessed to be able to get some pictures before my battery died! We live in between Salem and Silverton. Have a great day!

    ReplyDelete