A good day got better!

Saturday morning proved to be a really busy one, I hadn't got all day because I was being picked up by Daz at 12.30pm to go up the footie and watch the mighty Leicester City in a local Derby against near rivals Coventry, boo hiss!.

Therefore I was up and out early, the morning light was good, but it was forecast to get dull and wet so time was of the essence! My main aim was to check as many local sites as possible for confirmation of pairs in residence, any sites that do have pairs then become priority for monitoring during the breeding season.

I started off by visiting the nearest Little Owls to where I live, site No 101. The owls at this site have been very elusive of late, but I needn't of worried as the resident pair were soon located in the nest tree. I was hoping for an opportunity to get an image of both of them together, it didn't happen so I had to make do with just the single bird, below. 

The next destination was my site No 58, only a single owl was noted here but at least he posed for a few seconds on top of a post for an image.

On my travels owls were also noted at my site No's 12, 21 & 22. No images were possible because the owls were too far away and I hadn't got the time to sit and wait for them to get closer.

At my site No 19 really close up views were had of the resident pair as they sat cuddled up together in a crevice, I am very pleased with the image (below ) but more importantly after making dozens of visits this is my first sighting of the owls here since April of last year. 

During the morning I also had some good news, whilst driving across some fields I chanced upon a brand new pair of Little Owls, site No 205! I've driven down this particular track on dozens of previous occasions and never seen an owl here before! I can only assume they are last years juveniles that have paired and set up a new territory? The tree I saw them in is very near to a couple of nest boxes that I erected last year, here's hoping they find one of them suitable and set up home.

Not a bad few hours really, in total 11 owls were seen, 4 pairs and three singles across 7 different sites. To then top off the good morning the afternoon was just as good, City won 2-0.........time to have a celebratory drink I think!

Not much time!

With the darker nights drawing in there is not much time left after work to get out there and see many owls, with this in mind I made sure I had my camera with me today as I knew when I had finished work I would be passing by a couple of known sites.

It was late in the day when I passed site 16, the light levels were poor but my good fortune was in, one of the resident Little Owls was sitting at the nest hole.

The next site that I had my fingers crossed for was site No 101 which is only 400 metres from my house, I look in the tree nearly every day but they have eluded me for the last couple of months.........until today!

I pulled the car up in a verge on the opposite side of the road and gave the tree the usual once over, nothing showing again! Then just as I was about to pull away I spotted him, hiding behind some leaves.

A few moments later he dropped down onto a lower limb and gave me a better photo opportunity, not the best image of this bird I've ever had but it was good to see they are still hanging around.

I think for the next few months my photo opportunities of the owls are going to be limited to the weekends when I can get out in better light levels, that is unless I take my camera to work again!

Rear Enders

As regular readers of this blog are aware I have been trying desperately to get some flight shots of little owls, today the light levels were perfect for the fast shutter speeds required to nail the required image. All I needed now was the owls to show and to play their part to help me achieve my desired results, sounds easy hey?

Well I had two opportunities toady where the owls in question were in a suitable pose and it was now all down to me to have my setting on the camera correct and to expose the image at just the right time, easy hey? Well easy if the owl played its part and flew either across me or towards me......not away from me!!! 

Opportunity No 1, wrong way Mr owl!!!

Site 101, Whetstone Golf Club

Excuse me Mr owl wrong way again!!!

Site 37, Countesthorpe - Rose Farm Site A

One day please god I'm gunna nail that dam image!!!!

Can't see the owls for the trees!

Saturday was going to be the nicest day of the year ....so far! I couldn't let this pass by without getting out there with one main aim in mind........images of owls in flight. But before that I wanted to see if the owl I located on Friday night (site 101) was still hanging around?

Beings as it was so close to home the kids joined me in the landrover so they could come and have a quick look. As we pulled in it was good news, the bird was still there and he was on the side of the main tree trunk making the most of the glorious sunshine. A surprisingly confident bird that didn't seem bothered by our presence, maybe due to the tree being right next to the road and near to a equestrian centre?

Site 101, Whetstone Golf Club.

I am still puzzled as to where this bird has come from, was this a nomad bird just passing through my patch looking for a new territory or partner? I had previously checked that tree so many times, how could I have missed him......NO them!!!! Yes that's right, the kids had located a second bird.......Fantastic!! Now I'm not going to let where these birds came from torment me any further, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed they hang around long enough to raise a family.

Effortless!!!!

Yep it has happened, tonight another new site has been located,  it took me an absolute age to eventually cross the line and achieve the 100 mark and not 24hrs later site 101 has been located. I feel a little bit guilty really as it was found with even less effort than site 100!!!

I'd spent the early part of the evening over at site 22 where a single bird showed well in the low evening sun. I was quite pleased with the images I'd captured but it wasn't the time for hanging around as it was Friday night and the Guinness gods were calling me!! I was no further than 30 seconds drive from home (in the rejuvenated landrover) going  along a road that I must have travelled thousands of times and by a tree that I must have gave the once over hundreds of times and without even trying there it was..........owl site 101!

I couldn't believe my luck, I pulled over and although the light levels were really poor I managed this image before the little blighter disappeared behind the hedgerow. 

Site 101, Whetstone - Whetstone Golf Club

Going back to earlier in the evening when I was at site 22, these are a couple of images that I was particularly pleased with and the latter pair were very near misses of owls in flight, dooohhhh!!!

Site 22, Blaby - Whetstone Gorse Site B

Site 22 - Worming!

Near miss 1

Near miss 2