owls about that then!: Headers

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.

Monday, 23 January 2012

Headers

Just recently I have been having a "play around" with my blog layout, I thought it was getting a bit too messy (and maybe a bit stale) so I tried to tidy it up a bit and make it more appealing to the eye for any readers. I have also been occasionally changing the header image, and to be fair I have had some positive feedback, which is nice!

It was suggested by one Leicester birder (who will remain anonymous) that I should change it on a daily basis..........WHAT????

Now I'm all for a bit of variety but to do it that regularly would mean I've got hundreds of suitable images and loads of spare time........of which I haven't, of either!

However, I have taken on board his request (no pressure then!!) so from now on I will attempt to keep things fresh and change it maybe a couple of times a week......images allowing?

So, this latest header (large above and smaller cropped below) was one of a series taken in May of last year and the owls were located perched up sitting in the sun on the side of an old chapel.

Hope you like it?

8 comments:

Tammy said...: Love it! Captivating photo!!; 24 January 2012 00:33
Christian said...: It's absolutely brilliant as usual Paul.; 24 January 2012 07:50
Alan Pavey said...: A great photo and love the 5 SEO's in the previous post :-); 24 January 2012 09:29
Richard Pegler said...: I love this one - just that bit different!!

Don't knock yourself out with the headers Paul. Always nice to see a change, but what we really want to see is your owls and your photography from your field visits!; 24 January 2012 10:32
Ramón Suárez said...: Preciosa foto, me encanta este animal.
Saludos!!; 24 January 2012 11:33
Alison said...: Lovely photographs; 24 January 2012 21:03
colin said...: You know it makes sense HaHa another stunner mate; 24 January 2012 21:54
Rid said...: Thank you all!; 24 January 2012 23:58