Short-eared Owl gets in some evening hunting before the sun slips into the horizon.

A Short-eared Owl gathers some speed toward the evening sun after diving for a vole.

When you've been working on the nest to get it ready for the nesting season, but it's 10 degrees, and the dang snow keeps piling up, you just have to shake it off and do the chilly willies. Swipe to see the animated sequence . . .

Watching short-eared owls on the hunt is one of life's little joys along the journey . . .

Instead of a golden hour, it was more like a few golden minutes. Tom Skilling said the clouds might break toward the end of the day, but they held tight until the very end when the sun finally emerged from the main cloud layer only to sink into another layer of clouds before it disappeared into the horizon . . .

This Red-winged Blackbird was none too happy with this Osprey flying over his territory, so the chase was on. After a couple of maneuvers, it was Osprey 1, RWB 0.