Maybe a pair?

This evening Daz and I re-visited my most recent little Owl site (No 163) over at Great Glen, our purpose was to meet up with Becky & Zara, (the self appointed guardians of the owls) and to position a "landing perch" underneath the nest hole that will enable the juveniles to more easily return to the nest hole should they so wish.

On route we passed my Little Owl site No 111 near to Wistow. This site was first located in July 2010 and although I have heard the birds calling on several occasions I have never been able to locate the nest tree, let alone see the birds! Well both of those "nevers" were well and truly put to bed tonight as it was mission accomplished on both counts.

As tonight Daz was driving it gave me far more opportunity to thoroughly scan the trees and hedgerows as we made our way along the country lanes. And then it happened, as we were approaching near to site 111 there it was, a Little Owl sitting out brazenly in the evening sun in a road side tree, yippee!!!! Daz passed the bird and turned around so as to get the bird on my side of the car, window wound down and camera at the ready we approached with caution and pulled up. It sat there long enough for me to attain my first ever image, not the best of quality as it was back lit by the sun but I was well chuffed!

             

Things went without a hitch at Becky's & Zara's and the juvenile perches were soon up at site 163, its just a matter of time now to see if they are used? On our return journey we pulled up again at site 111 and the owl was there again!! It was in the same tree and it allowed a few fleeting seconds for an image, no problem with the sun this time as it was nearly dark, possibly too dark?

It wasn't until I was processing the two images that I realised they could actually be two different birds, take a look at the head patterns, what do you think?