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!!!

Thursday, 15 July 2010

More breeding success.

I have a number of Little Owl breeding sites this year where so far I have only managed to confirmed 1 juvenile, I'm sure a few re-visits to these sites will throw up a few more juveniles and get the overall tally ticking over, it is just a case of putting in more time and having a bit of luck that they show.

For this reason I re-visited Fleckney tonight to again check out site No 19,  after a good hour stake out it proved fruitless in terms of more juveniles, the tally at this site still remains at 1 for this year, however both adult birds were located roosting in the nest tree and offered some nice photo opportunities in between the showers.

Adult No 1

Adult No 2

Not wanting to waste too much time at just one location I moved on down the road to check out a potential new site near to Wistow. My mate Nigel thought he saw a Little Owl here a few months ago in a roadside tree so what had I got to lose, I had to go and investigate! I parked up where I thought it looked "owly" and waited. During the hour I was there I heard a Little Owl call on several occasions, but no sightings! I'm not going to give this site the honour of being my 111th site............just yet!!!!! I will re-visit very soon and with a bit of luck will make a sighting and then I will spend some time observing the birds habits and movements, this should then enable me to locate the nest tree and maybe............juveniles!!!!

I have another Little Owl site (No 97) not far from where I found myself so it was off to investigate that further, there is a pair of adults here and I have seen them on many occasions but sadly no breeding evidence this year........so far!

I pulled up next to the nest site and after a half an hours wait an adult bird showed right at the very top of the nest tree. After a while it swooped down into an adjacent field and caught a vole. It flew back with the vole and disappeared in the nest tree,  the next thing there was a right commotion .........it was feeding its chicks!

It wasn't long before the greedy little blighters wanted more and showed themselves on the outer limbs of the tree..........and there was three of them!!!!!

Juveniles No 1 & 2. 


Juvenile No 3.

What a result, tonight's observations have pushed this years juvenile tally up nicely to 59 from 28 sites.
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3 comments:

  1. Bob Bushell15 July 2010 at 17:57

    What some great pictures of the Little Owls, juvenile.It is brilliant. And the writings Paul.

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  2. Paul Riddle15 July 2010 at 19:29

    Cheers for your comments Bob.

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  3. Richard Pegler16 July 2010 at 10:12

    Excellent stuff, Paul! I particularly like the images of adult No.2 and juvenile No.3. I think that I've resigned myself to no juvenile images of my own this year. I will have to do more groundwork this year in the hope of better results next year! Many thanks for all your help and advice!

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