A Barn Owl

We have had a cold but sunny day today.  Looking up out of the windows this morning I realised how dirty they had become.  So out came the window cleaner and paper towels.  After cleaning the windows on the towpath side and admiring my work, the paintwork then looked very drab in contrast.  So this time out came the bucket of soapy water and a sponge and I set to on the paintwork too. Now the towpath side looks good and with tomorrow being hopefully as sunny as today Andrew will turn the boat around, which he can do quite successfully here in Tixall Wide and I can do the other side :-)

While I was labouring on the cleaning, Andrew was mucking about in the weed hatch 'cos we were not moving as well as we should have been yesterday.  What he was not expecting to find was a fan belt wrapped around the propeller.  And yes he checked, it was not one of ours!  I must say it looked pretty new, but Andrew did not keep it as a spare. I guess one does not know where it has been. Plus we now also have a nice dry (and clean) bilge under the engine.

To round off the day rather nicely Andrew spied a barn owl drifting over the field next to us. I leapt out of the boat with camera in hand and we wandered down the towpath to see if we could see it again and maybe let me get some pictures. This time I checked the camera settings before I took the photos.  When we got close, we saw some crows scaring him off and he drifted back to where we started. So back we went and lucky for us, saw him cruising back again. Unfortunately as it was close to sunset, the light was not too great and from the angle I was trying to get pics from (side on) he moved just to fast to get some great pics.  Just a white blur.  Not to be out done we kept an eye on him as he wandered over the field from us. Eventually he made his way back towards us and then popped up across the other side of the canal where I was finally able to get some pics that at least are recognisable as an owl.  I think the dark background helped. So here they are.  I really think that I might need a bigger more expensive lens for all this bird photography :-) (in that case I need a whole lot more fishing gear! - AKH)

And to finish off with, a sunset reflection.