Ottawa West
Attention Walmart Shoppers: Snowy Owl check on Pole 4!

It was pure luck, as I had been out looking for Snowies in another part of Ottawa West quite unsuccessfully. I stopped by a local camera shop to check out their Boxing Week sales; and was on my way home, when this owl flew out of the fields to the west of me and landed on a pole beside the road a couple of hundred metres ahead of me. Although the road was very busy, I was able to safely pull off the road and stop. As I got out my camera, the owl flew off into the field and I thought: "Expletive Deleted; foiled again". However I started shooting. This juvenile Snowy Owl (probably a female) had obviously caught something in the field; but to my surprise, instead of flying off (further into the field) she flew back towards me and landed on the original pole. The posted sequence of 14 photographs chronicles the time (in reverse order) from the owl having just captured/devoured a wild mouse/vole; through returning to the pole about 15 metres in front of me.