On the Tracks

It’s a fact that I’m extremely out of shape.  But I’ve got a new outlook on life and part of that is taking better care of how I eat, sleep, and exercise.  I still had a vanilla shake tonight (so hard to resist), but I’m getting better each day.  I continue to pat myself on the back for the distance I’ve come.  Office life has been a killer on my body, and I’m ready to take it back. 

So, as I was riding my bike this morning down old Rittenhouse road, the part that’s been closed down, I stopped to wait out a cotton tail rabbit that was dashing in and out of the tumbleweeds.  It disappeared.  So, I started looking around for what else I could shoot as long as I was stopped.  I was about 40 yards from the railroad tracks and I saw a bird perched there.  With my great eyesight, I couldn’t tell what it was until I looked through the zoom to see that it was a burrowing owl!  I love these owls.  Whenever I run the farm roads I run into them.  They’ll usually screech to let you know they are there and then try to lure you aware from their nest.  This particular bugger was tricky!  When I got too close it flew off on the other side of the  railroad tracks but I could see where it had gone.  After about 20 minutes of searching through the fields filled with doves, I headed back the opposite direction of where I had seen it go before it flew below the level of the railroad tracks.  And there it was.  Perched all smug about 50 yards down the track in the opposite direction that it had lead me to believe it had gone.  That tricky…Sly dawg.  One guy I talked to, while trying to photograph them, told me that twice he has had them fly up and knock off his hat or go after his dog.  I think egg hatching season is coming up soon and they may be getting a little more rowdy.  Here she is.

f/5.6   1/500 sec   ISO 200
Canon EOS 7D with ‘EF-S 55-250mm f/4.5-5.6 IS’ at a 250mm FL from 70m away (cropped)