Early start, quite varied so far and it's only just after 1pm

As we needed a grocery store run and not wanting to catch the covid lurgy from the maskless morons hereabouts I was at the local Giant supermarket at 6am. Got the stuff we wanted and I was home by 7am to a waiting cup of tea and as Kelly put the stuff away I made myself a bacon butty for breakfast. I watched the sun come up against a clear sky with nothing in the way of wind which in the 18f temperature wouldn't have been good. I popped out and put plenty of mealworms, seed and suet in all the right places and got set up to take some pictures in the superb lighting. It started off very promising with 3 Bluebirds and then a horde of Starlings then nothing, and nothing and even more nothing. After 15 minutes of absolutely Foxtrot Alpha (use your imagination) I went outside to confirm my fears. There he was, the SOB, sitting in one of the Walnuts soaking up the sunshine. I gave up, it didn't look like he was going to move so it was futile continuing. I started loading the few shots I took to bigMac when Rick texted asking if I wanted to go look for a reported Snowy Owl in the Amish Country of Lancaster County. Did I ever. So dashing around getting Arctic Survival clothing (18f remember) I set off for Ricks. We drove separately and arrived about 20 minutes later to the country road where it had been seen. Snowy's are pretty regular Winter visitors to this area and they sit on barn and house roofs or silos. We drove along the road stopping and looking and got to the end and was about to turn and go back when a bloke stopped and said he'd just seen it. We followed him to a place we'd stopped about 10 minutes before and there it was. It was sheltering under a Solar Panel mounted on the roof of this Amish Farmhouse. I wonder what they wanted a solar panel for as they are supposed to shun electricity.  I didn't want to disturb it by getting closer and even though the temperature was still below freezing there was a fair bit of a heat haze shimmering and preventing really sharp pictures. Still they are lovely birds to see. Not once did it open it eyes.

Eastern Bluebird

Coopers Hawk

Snowy Owl having a nap.