owls about that then!: Nipped out!

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.

Sunday, 29 January 2012

Nipped out!

Not much time for owling on Saturday, a very tasty hangover put paid to my planned early start, then I had an appointment down the city in the afternoon to watch the football, not much time left for anything else then? It's amazing just how quick a day can flash by and nothing seems to get done, however, as busy as I was I did still managed a quick visit out to check out three local sites where I made my first sighting of the year.

Little Owl site No 88.

At my site No 86 a bird was located sitting on some straw bales in a barn, I think it was hunting for mice? It was pretty dark in there which resulted in quite a noisy image (grainy in the shadow areas) because of the need to use a high ISO setting.

My site No 10 also yielded a first sighting for the year, a pair where out here but only one of them came close enough for a quick snap.

Goodness knows how many owls I could see in a whole day if I dedicated the time to doing it? Without the hangover of course, so not much chance there then because nearly every weekend is spent recovering from one!!!

7 comments:

Christian said...: I'm sat here, recovering from last night, enjoying your cracking Little Owls Paul!

Have you ever done a day count for owls? Be interesting to set a record?; 29 January 2012 19:48
Mike Randall Bird Photography said...: They are great pictures Paul. Suddenly realised where I am going wrong, my hang overs are not severe enough!; 29 January 2012 20:15
Ramón Suárez said...: Preciosas fotos, me encantan!
Saludos!!; 29 January 2012 21:05
colin said...: Nice Header Rid whose idea was it to change them..................hehehe; 29 January 2012 21:43
Tammy said...: Excellent photos! I especially love the composition of the first one!; 30 January 2012 01:26
Rid said...: Christian, a day count for owls??? Just had a quick look back through some of my records and I've had 30+ on a couple of occasions. You have now "challenged" me, so later in the year I will see if I can do 40+ different owls in a day, possible I suppose as long as I'm not hung over!

Mike, I don't recommended owling with a hangover, but if you are going to do it......do it properly!

Yes Col I know it was your idea to keep changing my header. Please keep your great ideas to yourself in future, remember I have some video footage of you singing!!!!!

Thanks to you all for your kind comments.......Paul.; 30 January 2012 09:43
Richard Pegler said...: Nice to see you back with the little-uns again Paul - and with such excellent results too!!; 31 January 2012 16:31