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!!!

Sunday, 28 March 2010

Owls 5 Owlers 15 (ish)

Today I met up with John Turner, an avid birder and great photographer whom normally spends most of his time over at Eyebrook reservoir. Anyhow John was after seeing some little owls and if possible the chance to improve on his images so he tagged along with me for the day.

Our meeting point was wistow craft and garden centre at 10.00am, we met up but before the off we decided to pop into the onsite tearooms for a quick brew and a bacon sarnie, well only I had the sarnie, it was to help soak up the Guinness from the night before, thank you John it was delicious.

The weather forecast for the day was pretty good and I was very confident that we would see plenty of owls? The day started pretty slow and after two sites visited nothing was seen, and I told John the second site we visited was a dead cert banker!!!! What do I know?? (owls 2 owlers 0). The worm slowly turned as the day unfolded as we made sighting at the next five locations (owls 2 owlers 5).

During the nonstop site to site search we stopped off at Peatling Parva where I managed to get my best image yet from this site (below) of the male bird.

Site 75, Peatling Parva - Preistlands

The day progressed really nicely and loads of owls were eventually seen, I think John was well pleased as he managed some smashing images, these can be seen on the Birdguides Website. Although I couldn't be sure of the exact final score (probably 15-5) it was a deffo win for the owlers.

After I dropped John off and on my way back I decided to stop off again at the Preistands site and again good views were had (a pair this time). The birds were soon flying about the site and at one stage they were quite busy mating, through those observations I can now confirm that both the pictures taken today were of the male bird.

Peek a boo!

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