a wing and a prayer
Living in the Bay area, we are often fortunate enough to have pretty incredible weather in the winter time. As the rest of the country digs itself out of snow and ice, we get the chance to hike through hills lush green from the winter rains.
It was two years ago this week when Meghan and I went for a New Years hike through the Marin headlands and came upon this scene. We first saw feathers from a distance and upon closer inspection, saw the remains of an owl. There was no way to determine what brought the owl its demise. What made the scene particularly odd was the way that several parts of the owl, scattered around the ground, were relatively intact. Take for example this wing, which aside from the fact that it is no longer connected to anything, looks to be in good shape.
These disembodied but otherwise fine looking owl parts set a bit of a surreal scene.
For this photo, I wanted to capture the wing and how it was just laying in the grass, but I also wanted to include just a hint of the feathers in the corner, indicating more, just out of frame.
I had my Nikon camera outfitted with the 80-200mm f/2.8 lens hoping to capture some not-too distant wildlife while on this hike but this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. I would have preferred the 105mm macro for this shot, but wasn’t carrying it with me.
This year the weather wasn’t quite as cooperative though we did manage to take a misty walk with the dog.
