Hi and welcome to my Blog, my name is Paul Riddle and I live in south Leicestershire, UK. Back in August 2007 my quest began to locate as many local Little Owl territories as possible. The driving force was a reported decline in the uk numbers so I thought I would do my bit and conduct a study in my area. After 7 years and countless hours out in the field I have detected over 200 different sites. With a thirst for a greater understanding of the owls a more comprehensive monitoring and nest box programme then commenced. This also now includes monitoring the local and very sparse population of Barn Owls, please pop back occasionally and catch up with the life and times of my owls and any other wildlife that I come across. I hope you enjoy your visit!!!

Saturday 20 February 2010

Boxing Clever!

Out again today putting up more owl boxes with assistance from my old mate Ronny Hawkins, we managed a very healthy 6 taking the overall tally to 17. Its the 2nd time Ron has been out helping me and we learnt from last time and worked a lot smarter today. If I can keep this rate up it looks promising that I will meet my target date for all the boxes to be up by the end of Feb, I think I have still have enough timber to make another 5 boxes taking the total to 22.
   

Both these images were taken at one of my new sites and are the best images I have managed so far of these particular birds. The new hide (land rover) assisted as it enabled us to slowly drive right upto the tree they were in without spooking them, for some reason at this site (and others for that matter) I have found little owls really don't seem to be bothered by the close presence of vehicles??? We were then treated to some reasonable close views for a good 5 minutes or so before they were off.

During the day we saw a total of 6 different owls and heard 1 other to make a day total of 7. 

Site 96, South Wigston - Port Hill

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