Yesterday's delight

It was another glorious day yesterday - sunny and warm - so I decided to do the drive NW of Calgary, hoping that I might just find a Great Gray Owl. I left home much later than I usually do, about 4:00 p.m. and I got home somewhere around 9:45 p.m, much later than I had planned. After driving something like 140 km, I had found nothing other than a Crow, and a Killdeer who put on the broken-wing act because I startled it when I came round a corner rather fast. Patience doesn't begin to describe what is needed when looking for owls, but eventually I gave up and knew I had to get out of there if I wanted to be more or less home before dark. I certainly didn't want to be caught on the backroads when darkness fell. Two minutes later, as I rounded a bend, this is what I saw down the road, but with its back to me, making it more difficult to notice. The feeling of giving up and then suddenly being "rewarded" is such a great feeling : ))) Total driving distance was 236 km, time out was 5 3/4 hours.