Last week while I was hiking up on a ridge at our local regional park, I was hanging out with a golden eagle sitting on a fence post at the top. I was quietly shooting pics of the eagle, and another, smaller raptor flew by. It looked like a harrier (very common here), so I took several shots of the flight, thinking nothing of it and not knowing whether any of them came out. The flyby was only a couple of seconds long. Anyway, the next day I was showing the golden pics to my daughter and ran across the harrier flight sequence....and it turns out is was a short eared owl! I have never seen or heard of anyone else seeing one of these owls in this park. They are winter visitors to the SF bay area, but usually seen at lower elevations in the flats. Anyway, here are some from the flight sequence. I got doubly lucky that day between the golden and the SEO.
