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 29 September 2015

Its been a while.......

As the blog title suggests, I haven't published a post for some time now?  I have still been getting out owling occasionally but my focus of late has just been general birding. I have also made a couple of trips over to the east coast, but more locally I have been concentrating on a few nearby and very under watched areas that just ooze potential.......

In just a few visits to one particular site I have very quickly notched up a list of over 65 different species with the jewels being Kingfisher, Stonechat and passage Redstart and Whinchat. I don't always take my camera with me when walking because of its weight but when I did a few images were bagged.

There were at least two Restarts seen over consecutive days, their presence being given away by their persistent calling. They never really came close and this "record shot" was my best effort.

Redstart
The single Stonechat was a far more confining individual and after being persistent some closer views we had.

Stonechat
Whilst watching the Stonechat a young Whinchat also put in an appearance, it constantly followed the Stonechat around whilst what appeared to be begging for food, strange behavior?


But for me the far most rewarding bird (and image) was that of the Whinchat. It was a devil to get close to but after what seemed to be several hours in the trying I did eventually manage an image that I was very pleased with.

Whinchat
I think the main reason for not concentrating on my local owls of late is the fact that my beloved Landrover has been sold. She was just too thirsty, at 12 miles to the gallon the wallet was soon bare!! This has obviously hampered my access to the more remote owl sites that I use to visit/monitor. However, I have seen a few owls over the last few weeks at some of my more accessible locations, here is a quick catch up.........

Over the last two months I've made many visits to my Little Owls site No 4, here the results were disappointing. In previous years this location has proven to be a prolific breeding site, but not this year, well not that I have proven? Whilst there the adult bird(s) were regally seen coming and going from the nest hole, (images below) but they weren't taking in any food. The other compounding factor was no begging calls from the chicks could be heard either, I've now resigning myself that for what ever reason this site has failed this year?

Adult at nest entrance - Site No 4

Adult at nest entrance - Site No 4
I was pretty confident that better results would be had at the second location, site No 250, here the outcome was very similar to site No 4. Both adults were in attendance, although they kept quite a low profile most of the time. And after many hours of observing there was just no evidence that they had any youngsters?

LO site 250. Keeping a low profile whilst watching me!
Whilst out searching for juvenile owls I was distracted some what on a couple of occasions by the local Kingfisher family.

Kingfisher - Adult
There was better news on the breeding front with the Kingfishers, this next images shows a pair of recently fledged youngsters.

Kingfisher - Juveniles

Kingfisher - Juvenile
This next image was taken after the young birds had fledged, occasionally one of the adult birds would make another visit to the nest, maybe a second brood was in the making?

Kingfisher - Adult
The male bird would on the very rare occasion pose nicely for me in good light.



The checking of my Barn Owl boxes still continues (to be fair it never really ends!). It has been a fantastic breeding year in my survey area with a confirmed 11 breeding pairs, although I must add the brood sizes are down.

Whilst en-route to check one particular box out a Barn Owl was seen flying from it!!!  This was very much a surprise as the box has only been up a few months. The owl in question flew around for a few minutes before landing in a nearby tree cavity. This gave me a wonderful opportunity to capture an image of it as it stared back at me.

New Barn Owl Location?
Although all of this years young Little Owls have now fledged their respective natal sites I did manage to see a few of them a month or so ago. The numbers of proven breeding sites in my survey area does seem to be very low this year, or is it that I have been too pre-occupied with the Barn Owls I just haven't noticed them?

Juvenile Little Owl
Since my last post two new Little Owl sites have also been found, the first had a pair in residence although only one of them obliged for a photo.

1st new Little Owl site.

1st new Little Owl site.
 
1st new Little Owl site.
The observations at the second new site was all over and done with in a matter of seconds, I spotted the bird perched up in a roadside tree. It was a very quiet lane so I was able to stop intermediately, the camera was poked out of the window and just the one image (below) was obtained before it flew off!

2nd new Little Owl site.
So that has just about caught up with all my goings on of late folks, thanks for stopping by..............

15 comments:

  1. Great post with a good deal of variety. You Barn Owl success is pretty amazing.

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  2. Many thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment David!

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  3. Nooooo! How could you get rid of ol'faithful? Are you going to replace it? However I'm glad it hasn't stopped you getting some cracking images. They're all brilliant and the Kingfisher are to stunning images. However my favourite bird is the Stonechat and the first one is an absolute belter of a shot...quite jealous to be fair

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  4. The Landie just had to go, I was hemorrhaging cash! Bought for £350 and sold for £1,650, a nice tidy profit that should cover most of my previous running costs. Now the proud owner of a "snot green" Nissan X trail, farm more luxury, everything works, does more than 50mph and well over 12 to the gallon!

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  5. Well done with the barn owls, ours have again missed. You have again got some superb images, the kingfishers are tops for me. Spent most of last Thursday afternoon chasing kingfishers for an image at Rutland Water and failed miserably, well done you.

    John

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    1. From all accounts it hasn't been a great breeding year in the UK for Barn Owls John, hen birds under weight (so not breeding) smaller clutches/broods, and very low cached prey/rodents being seen in boxes. I guess we did extremely well with 11 pairs! I'm sorry you missed out on the Kingfishers at Rutland, it took me 8 years to find "my birds" and then hundreds of hours lying in wait for them to come close enough. Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment, catch up again soon I hope......

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  6. Absolutely good photographs! Congratulations Mr. Riddle! :-)
    Warm greetings

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    1. Many thanks Dzial, and greeting to you over in Poland too!!

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  7. Hi Paul.

    Awesome photos!

    My friend owns a pub in Leire, which is where I've set my challenge to capture a shot of a barn owl. As of yet, I'm failing badly.

    I've been lucky enough to spot them at a glance, through the reflection of my headlights whilst heading home. But that's it!

    Any tips on where to look in the leire area, where I can catch the shot of them flying or perched on a tree etc?

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    1. Thanks for your comment Mark. I have only rarely seen Barn Owls around the Leire area, possibly two or three sightings in the last nine years! All I can suggest is that you concentrate more time and effort where you have seen them and hopefully luck is on your side. The Leire, Ashby Parva, Ullesthorpe and Claybrook area's are going to be the next locations where I'm going to erect a few more boxes, so in time they will be seen with a bit more regularity, fingers crossed? Keep me posted on how you get on or any sightings you make as they could help me decide where to erect some boxes, best of luck.........

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  8. As always brilliant images buddy, the Whinchat my favourite, magazine material mate..............

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  9. Hi Paul. I've been away from Blogger, and birding in general for a while, so I'm just catching up now. Yours is the first site I'm visiting, and what a way to start!!! An utterly fabulous set of images, with the first Stonechat image being possibly the best image of any species that I've seen this year! I'm very envious of your wonderful Kingfisher sightings and images - a species that had totally eluded me this year until Wednesday when I saw one, but no photo!

    Best wishes - - - - Richard

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    1. Good to see you are back in the blogging world Richard, many thanks for your comments even though they are a little flattering!!

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