My hard disc is groaning with pictures of vineyards. Trellised to terraced, sunbaked to moonlit, verdurous to naked. When I visited Brazil last month, I snapped yet another folder's worth. They are the sort of photos that, whilst pleasing enough, look decidedly reminiscent of numerous other wine regions. Plump black bunches, regimented rows undulating over hills towards the horizon, rustic twisted rootstocks. I could have encountered analogous scenes virtually anywhere. Owls, however, are a rarer encounter. This one, atop a trellis post in a field of Merlot, is Athene cunicularia.
I sent the same photo to a girl I...