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 20 June 2010

Fluff Ball

Not much to shout about this weekend in terms of Little owl's sightings, my intentions were to have a nice early start on Saturday. This didn't happen......I think the drowning of my sorrows the night before took its toll, too many toasts to our gloriously useless England Football Team (what a bunch of TO#*ERS!!!!).

After the late start (and still throbbing head) a nice lazy day was planned, but not as lazy as it turned out! I went over to my site 33 at the local quarry. My intention was to hopefully get some adult images bringing in a variety of food for the juveniles. I was in situ and in my hide for 11.30am, after half an hour a juvenile appeared and sat at the nest entrance.  Great the plan was coming together, all I needed now was the adults to appear...........at 7.30pm I packed up, no adults showed after a wait of EIGHT hours!!!!!!

All I had to show for a very loooooooooong day was this "fluff ball" of a juvenile Little Owl.

  
Sunday found me checking out a few local sites with the hope of seeing some "out of the nest" juveniles. First call was at site 53 near to Countesthorpe, here a juv was spotted almost immediately sitting in a cavity below the nest hole.  


During the morning another 6 sites were visited but all to no avail, no more juveniles were sighted but en route a few adult birds were seen but all too distant for any decent images.

A single bird was located sunning itself at site 77.


Another single bird was seen out hunting from the posts at site 105.


Hopefully the lack of juvenile sighting will be put right in the week to come, that is if they haven't all gone into hiding and don't want to come out to play...........just like our football team!!!!! 

1 comment:

  1. I just love that first image, Paul. I'd be more than happy just to see a juvenile on 'my patch'. Keep up the good work!!

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