owls about that then!: Barn Owl?

Hi and welcome to my Blog, my name is Paul Riddle and I live in south Leicestershire, UK. As far back as I can recall I have had an interest in wildlife and in particular birds, especially owls and raptors. In August 2008 I began my quest to locate as many Little Owl territories as possible local to where I live. 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. The majority of my allotted time so far has been dedicated to reach a target of a 100 sites, once achieved the searching will slow down and a more comprehensive monitoring and nest box programme will commence. Please pop back occasionally and catch up with the life and times of my owls, I hope you enjoy your visit!!!

UPDATE.....2011 will see my Little Owl study continue to gather momentum and on into its 3rd year, hopefully I will be able to reach my new target of locating 200 Little Owl sites. In addition to that I will also be monitoring the local Barn Owls too. From my observations they appear to be fairing worse than the Little Owls and their population in South Leicestershire is very sparse indeed. I will be implementing a similar nest box type programme and hopefully in time the numbers will increase.....

UPDATE.....2012 will see my nest box project gathering more momentum, but now I am concentrating mainly on Barn Owls. Their numbers are sparse here in south Leicestershire with only 3 or 4 known pairs! Currently I have made and erected 37 boxes with the kind help of "my team". But it is not enough, so my plan is to keep building and erecting new boxes as I want to create a corridor of boxes that will encompass each know breeding territory. They will all be located in suitable habitat then when the 2012 juveniles disperse they will hopefully not need to move too far before they settle down and establish their own "local" territory.

The Little Owls are doing just fine, my 3 year quest came to an end in Aug 2011, during this time I managed to record birds at 197 different Leicestershire locations (+ 5 out of the county), successful breeding was recorded at 114 of these sites . Currently we have made and erected 42 boxes, of which 7 were used in 2011, the plan for 2012 is to get this number up to 50 but with a different design to see if more occupancy can be achieved.

Saturday, 21 January 2012

Barn Owl?

You may well of thought that by the title of this post I was going to share some recent Barn Owl images, well sorry to disappoint!

There is a barn and there is an owl, but it's a Little Owl in and around a barn!

Due to the fact that the weather has yet again scuppered and chances of getting out I thought I'd get on with doing some more organising of my files and images. Whilst doing this I came across a selection from my site No 172, the majority of which have never posted before, so just to keep things ticking over I'd like to share them with you, enjoy............

Here's hoping the local conditions have a change for the better and I can get out otherwise I'm afraid to say that I will have to delve deep into my archives again to share some more old stuff!

7 comments:

Tammy said...: Stunning photos! What a magnificent looking bird!; 21 January 2012 18:16
Phil Brown said...: Fabulous images Rid! Keep 'em coming!; 21 January 2012 19:54
Richard Pegler said...: In weather like we've been having, it's nice to see some really great images, even if they are from the past. Brilliant Paul!!; 21 January 2012 20:12
Ramón Suárez said...: Preciosas fotos de un ave preciosa.
Saludos!!; 21 January 2012 21:55
Veronica said...: I am in total awe of your photos!! I especially love the owl in your header...very nice!!; 22 January 2012 00:18
Bobbster said...: Quality images Paul thanks for posting; 22 January 2012 07:02
colin said...: Loving the headers mate..........; 22 January 2012 13:49