A local bonus!

This evening I was fulfilling a long standing promise I'd made to yet another friend who has been desperate for some close up views of Little Owls, a good evening was had too as in total we saw 13 different Little Owls, 6 adults and 7 juveniles. He was well pleased with the viewing and stated the 12 month wait was worth it, .........sorry mate but we did finally get there!

Once I'd honoured my promise and dropped him off a happy chappy I was off out again, the light was still good and there was enough time left for me to go and do a bit of photography. I'm glad I did too as some super views were had.

 

On my way back and only 5 minutes from home I had a really nice surprise, a new Barn Owl site. I'd always had my suspicions that they were in the area, hence the erecting of 4 nest boxes close by but I'd never seen one, until tonight.

It was located sitting at a cavity entrance that I always check whenever passsing out this way, I was actually hoping to find Little Owl but this was a much better find!  When I spotted it I didn't stop, I kept driving until I was able to pull over and get the camera out. All the camo was re-positioned at the windows and then I reversed back up and parked next to the tree. After a 20 minute wait the Barn Owl re-emerged at the entrance, by now it was nearly 10pm, although you'd never guess that judging by the image, below. ISO was at 2,000 and a shutter speed of half a second, thank goodness I had my bespoke camera clamp with me!

And you know what, the nest boxes that I have erected near to where this owl was seen haven't even been checked this year yet! It's not easy though when I have nearly a 100 boxes to monitor, getting around them all takes time, a lot of time!! I suppose I need to get my act together and make the time, guess what I am going to be doing soon?