After visiting St-Gabriel, we toured the back roads west of Saint-Édouard-de-Maskinongé. When we decided to head on to St-Édouard the GPS showed 1e Rang as the fastest route. Warning - 1e Rang is a forest break road and parts of it are only meant for trailbikes and ATV`s (something Magellan GPS has a lot to answer for!!). Rain the previous day had flooded sections of the track and turned other spots into slippery hill climbs. With no turnoff points we pushed through, stopping often to check water depth. At one of these stops, I spooked two young Barred Owls that flew off to a tree further down the track. One owl came out of the shade long enough for me to take this photo.

This was shot with a 500mm lens + 1.4 Extender, the Depth-of-Field drop off giving it a very ``plastic`` look. Although I am not a big fan of extenders, the vulture was just a bit too far out of range for the 500mm to provide facial details.

While Barbara was busy taking photos of Turkey Vultures, the crow flew overhead angling towards the sun. I just had time to take one shot before getting sun flare. As luck would have it the clear shot I got shows the contrasting color of the upper palate that is rarely seen. Just a touch of color to an otherwise mostly duotone photo.