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!!!

Saturday 8 December 2012

More Jays

A number of posts ago I mentioned that I'd been working on a couple of other projects away from the owls, the first being Kingfishers and the second being Jays. The Kingfisher project has yet to produce any results but after a very slow start the Jay project is now gathering momentum.  Originally I selected a secluded location that had the most important requisite.....OAK TREES. The next part of the plan was to create a "feeding table" and this would be topped up every couple of days with a variety of nuts.
 
Up until yesterday all that I had seen there were Magpies, Crows & Squirrels. I was en route to an appointment and did my usual quick stop off to keep the feed topped up, and to my amazement as I was driving off a Jay appeared! That was it, an early lunch was to be had and I parked up the car and waited. I didn't have long due to other commitments but that wasn't an issue, the Jays came back down to the feed almost straight away. There was three in total and they must have been hungry as they demonstrated a bolder approach than I have ever seen before. The light wasn't very good but hey I am not moaning as these are by far the best Jay images I have ever captured. I did do a quick post with a few images late last night but I didn't have much time as I was off to the pub! So this morning I have had time to go through the other images and here they are. 






It was a very exciting ten minutes for me, absolutely brilliant when a long term plan comes to fruition, OK lets go and get some Kingfisher images now!

3 comments:

  1. Super results Paul. Your efforts and patience definitely paid off here!

    I hope the Kingfisher project rewards you as well.

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  2. Good luck for the Kingfishers, I bet a fiver you get some. You're getting some great results with Project "J" as for the light it doesnt show.

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  3. Great set of images mate loving the new header.

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