Yesterday (Sunday) I revisited the Long Eared Owl site I located before the weekend, I thoroughly checked the three roosting spots where I had previously seen pellets on the ground and poo in the branches.......but nothing!! I am just hoping that the atrocious weather conditions we've being suffering recently have made it seek refuge in a more sheltered roosting location and it will return come better conditions?
On a brighter note though, on Sunday two new Little Owl sites were added to my ever growing list, both were results of recent chance encounters with local people with local knowledge and after having a good chat with them (or rather an interrogation) I extracted a couple of leads.
After searching for hours in the cold blustery wind and rain I finally got em both, believe me though neither of them were an easy find, judge for yourself by the images below!
New site No 156 at Dunton Basset, I assure you it is in the image, can you see it?
Did you find the owl? No I thought not! Now look just inside the very bottom of the hole that is in the middle of the picture, you can just make out the top of its head and its eyes, and some of you think finding these owls is easy!
New site No 157 was located at Gumley and it was almost an impossible find and much harder than the previous, although you wouldn't believe it from looking at the picture (below). What isn't apparent in this image is the fact that there was a bush in between me and the owl and it was only when I was searching through the camera lens whilst focusing on the tree that I found it sheltering out of the wind and rain.
Many thanks to the two ladies who gave up there time to talk to me about owls, at the time of my "pestering" one was busy lambing and the other was working in the garden centre!
So my "Little Owl Ometer" keeps ticking over and my reset target of 200 different sites is now becoming a reality, is it possible to attain by the end of the year?..............Lets wait and see!
No comments:
Post a Comment