For weeks now, I have been waking up early and driving into Acton to photograph a family of barred owls. Some days, I spend hours at the nest site and have few images of photographic merit to show for it. This morning, however, I hit the jackpot. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted mom flying into the area carrying a northern short-tailed shrew. I knew her next stop would either be the nest where the unfledged owlet is still residing or the branch where the newly fledged fluff ball was perched. I set up my camera on the nest which proved to be the wrong guess and had to sprint to an entirely different location and find an angle through all the foliage for a clear shot. By the time my lens was on target and I had dialed in new settings the shrew had already been transferred and mom was about to depart. I literally had a ten-second window for this shot. I think I managed to nail the composition, framing, exposure, focus and was fortunate to have favorable lighting as well. Some may consider me crazy for waking up so early, freezing my ass off for hours on end, and enduring blood-thirsty mosquitoes during warmer mornings day after day. Capturing this one image, however, makes it all worthwhile for me and I would do it all again.