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!!!

Tuesday 8 May 2012

The parties over!

It was a Bank holiday weekend, brilliant loads of free time to get out there and spend some much overdue time catching up with my owls.........NOT!!!

My daughter Louise turned 18 on Sunday and as she had this massive (and very expensive) birthday bash for 120+ people in the evening and the whole of the weekend was taken up with my enforced roll of "party planner". Needless to say I wasn't able to sneak off, not even for 30 minutes as too many eyes were watching me!

So Monday morning was pencilled in for some catching up with the owls, ha ha ha what a laugh! The thumping head and dizziness from the over indulging the night before put paid to that. But come early afternoon I was starting to feel somewhat better so as the posse prepared themselves to re-visit the party venue to clear up the mess I decided it was a task far below the party planner so I sneaked off.

As I now have my beloved Landrover back I decided to visit a private and off road site near to South Wigston. In this area of land I have four different Little Owl sites but I drew a blank at them all bar one, mt site No 105. Here the male owl was located and he obliged by landing on various different perches giving some varied photo opportunities.




The time with the owl came to a premature end as the existing poor light levels soon became terrible light conditions as the clouds moved in and the heavens opened. Not to worry though, I was out long enough to allow all the party mess to be cleaned up by everyone else!

2 comments:

  1. Superb images! The last one is my favourite.

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  2. Excellent as always, but that middle image is fabulous. With the sharp foreground and diffuse background it looks absolutely 3D on my screen!!!

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