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, 5 June 2011

Shoot em all!

Yesterday Col Green and myself set about the task of checking more nest sites in readiness for the chick ringing that will start this Monday. It was a day of mixed results, nothing had moved into any of the Barn Owl boxes we checked, apart from that is yet another Stock Dove which was on two eggs. 

On the Little Owl front we drew blanks a several nest box sites but another three natural sites produced positive results. An incubating owl was on 2 eggs at Gilmorton,  at Broughton Astley there were 3 chicks in the nest and at least 3, possibly even 4 chicks were in a nest near to Market Bosworth.

We saw a few adult owls during the day, this was my only image though.


A very healthy Little Owl chick from the Broughton Astley site.


It wasn't quite so good news from a couple of natural Little Owl sites though, in fact it was terrible news! They have both been reliable "good viewing" locations with previous breeding successes, but not this year, oh no! They have both been forcibly evicted, by Jackdaws! This is now the seventh different site where this has happened this year, dam Corvids.............shoot em all!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment