Barn owl flying low over tall grass, cattails, wildflowers, and a field mouse.

Barn Owl Swooping Over a Field Mouse

A wide-winged barn owl glides just above meadow grass while a tiny mouse darts between cattails and wildflower stems.

🎨 How to color it

Give the barn owl creamy white face feathers, tawny gold wings, the field mouse soft gray fur, and the cattails a deep brown. Use sharp colored pencils for the many wing feather bands and grass blades, then switch to light side-strokes for the open clouds. Try a sunset twist by blending peach and pale lavender behind the owl so its bright face seems to flash forward.

The story behind this coloring page

Kestrel’s Shadow-Tag Chase — Each dusk, Kestrel skimmed the reed meadow and played Shadow-Tag, a game she had invented: touch the shadow of a cattail, a cloud, a beetle, then race home before the frogs finished three croaks. Read the full story →

Each dusk, Kestrel skimmed the reed meadow and played Shadow-Tag, a game she had invented: touch the shadow of a cattail, a cloud, a beetle, then race home before the frogs finished three croaks. The grass hissed under her wings, and the air smelled like mud and mint. She wanted to tag the trickiest shadow in the meadow. One evening, a mouse-shadow zipped where no mouse-path should be.

“Wait—new rule!” Kestrel cried, and dived after it. Because of that, the mouse bolted through grass tunnels, flicking his tail like a little gray question mark. Because of THAT, Kestrel noticed every tunnel pointed to the same soggy mound, where water gurgled under a jam of reeds and one shiny latch poked out.

At last, she tagged the latch’s shadow and tugged it free with her claws. Water rushed into the dry ditch with a cold slap, and the mouse popped up on the safe bank, whiskers shining. Next dusk, if you spot the tiny runner under the wide wings, you’ll know Shadow-Tag still begins where the grass hisses.