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 26 May 2011

Much Improved.

For the last week or so Leicestershire has been hit with some persistent high winds that have really hampered my owling just recently, therefore I needed to find a sheltered location where the owls just might show. One such site (No 157) possibly fitted the bill perfectly, it is near the village of Gumley and set amongst a few old ash trees in the bottom of a valley.

Although I have seen the owls here on a few previous occasions I'd never really invested any proper time and had only ever managed a single and very poor distant record image (below).  


So this evening that is where I headed for, and to my relief upon arrival I found the area was perfectly sheltered and out of the wind. I set myself up not far from what I believed to be the nest tree and waited. It took an absolute age before anything happened, but the owls did eventually show albeit only for around a minute!! But this was time enough for me to grab a few images of the resident pair, by no means quality images (the light was poor again!!!!) but a massive improvement on what I had before?


 


If the weather doesn't pick up soon I think I will be visiting these owls again, lets hope it does otherwise they are gunna be sick of the sight of me!!!!

1 comment:

  1. more great images, why are we getting March's weather in late May ?

    ReplyDelete