Beautiful Barn Owls

The Barn Owl is probably one of the UK's favourite birds and a very photogenic one to boot,  But its illusive life style also makes it a difficult subject to work with being that it is a mainly nocturnal bird of prey which hunts mostly just before sunrise and again around sunset means that photographer's encounters are generally during the fading light of dawn and dusk making exposure settings a bit of a nightmare,  The hunting time frame tends to extend during summer months when the adult birds have several hungry fledglings on their hands and this was the case with the owls that I have been working with to create the portfolio below,   Morning hunting tends to start earlier while it is dark and still finishes around sunrise so no gain there but during the evenings the hunting period can be extended into the period an hour or so before sunset creating far better exposure opportunities to take advantage of for a short spell,

The Barn Owl's graceful low and slow hunting behaviour created one of the finest wildlife spectacles that I have watched this year,  May there be may more !!

Many thanks to Martin Yelland for giving me a nodd in their direction.