Picture This!

What would you do if you looked out your bathroom window one spring morning and saw two eyes—large, round and dark—glaring at you? If you were Andy Wood, you’d call your mom, and if you were Andy’s mom, Brenda, you’d start shooting. No, not with a gun; with a camera, because the opportunity to photograph a young barred owl at close range doesn’t come along every day.  Wood, a research associate in agronomy and soils, and 8-year-old Andy spotted their first owlet—and then, a few limbs away, their second—from inside their Lake Martin home last spring.  The owlets didn’t budge from their perch all day, but the next morning, they were gone. Wood took several pictures of those two, but the young owl in Wood’s winning Picture This! photo isn’t one of them. It’s the newest owlet, and it perched outside the Woods’ window for three straight days this April before daring to take flight.  On one of those nights, Wood happened to peek out just as the mama owl flew in with her catch and patiently fed the owlet its supper. That, Wood says, was amazing.