While mum was visiting us for Christmas, we made a trip to Skagit to see if we could see some snow geese. We did but that element of the story will be another post. We also wanted to see whether we could see any of the short-eared owls up there. The weather was not great with plenty of rain sweeping across the flats, but the owls don’t get to stay at home when the weather is bad, so we tried our luck. We got there and no one was around which is not common for Skagit. Despite this, we parked up alongside the marshes to see if anything moved.

A few minutes of nothing much and then a northern harrier appeared so things weren’t a total loss. However, we didn’t need to wait long and soon the owls were on the prowl. As is normally the case, they were keeping themselves a little away from where we were, but we had a good view of them. Then, one of them flew in close by and landed on a post in the ground directly across from the car. It really couldn’t have done a better job. I was able to get some shots of it sitting there in the rain with its wings slightly out – presumably because of the wet.

It sat there for a while and then it fluffed up the feathers to shake off the water before taking flight. This couldn’t have been better set up for mum to get her owl experience. We continued to have them flying around near us as they hunted but we never got so close again. Indeed, one of them repeated the post trick further down the road but I didn’t feel the need to dash down there. Besides, the rain was coming and going and, by jumping out to take pictures, I had got a little damp. At least I had a warm car to retreat to, unlike the damp owls!