Home again, home again.

Yesterday, before the sun came up, and with a 16 foot long bag of pole-vault poles strapped to the roof of my car, I took Irene and Jeremy to the airport for their flights home.   I could have begun my 6 hour drive home right then.  But I had one more thing I really wanted to do in Lubbock before I left — to find a burrowing owl.   I had to wait for the 7:30AM sunrise to do it.  So, I went to Starbucks to kill some time, and then scoped out a couple parks.

After sunrise I spent about 90 minutes surveying several locations where ebird.org had reported sightings this month.   But no luck.  I was bummed, but I couldn’t stay here all day.  So I punched in my home address on google maps and was about to head home.  And then I thought I’d buzz through Mackenzie Park on my way out of town.   I spent about 15 minutes there, when I turned around to leave.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw something, and (drumroll, please), there he was!  A little burrowing owl sunning himself on his burrow mound.  AND he stood there long enough for me to take a picture.  It’s not great; the sun was in my face; but I got it!   🙂