Was tracking this Shorty across the late evening sky as it was gracefully working its way above the prairie when it abruptly went vertical to dive toward something it saw or heard below. Will miss these wonderful flying machines . . .

A male Snowy Owl taking in the scenery on a sunny, late winter day.

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

As the largest native waterfowl in North America, and with a wingspan of up to 7 to 8 feet, these elegant swans need a lot of room to take off . . . on water that is: Trumpeters cannot take off on land, only on water. . . .

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 . . .