A quick pit stop

Last night I had an extraordinary evening in comparison to my "normal" Friday night out,  the beer monster in me didn't materialise and the consumption was very much on the lean side!! Hooray no hangover this morning, more money in my pocket than expected and feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed too.

From my experiences one of the very best times of the year to see Little Owls is on a bright sunny winters morning following a bitter nights frost, and they were just the conditions we had today. So not one for wasting an opportunity and because I was feeling so good and clear headed it was off out at first light to see what was about.

I made a bee line to one of my favourite but not very often visited sites near to the village of Gilmorton. The reason I don't visit that often is because I know from old that it is a site that really lends itself to an early morning shoot (not something I often do!) because of the light direction. In addition to that and possibly more importantly one can observe and shoot from inside the car whilst keeping relatively warm, definitely a requirement for today!

After a while waiting an owl eventually appeared, trouble was by then the frost had already been zapped by the sun which took away the "wintery" effect I was after.

So now I have had time to pop back home and warm up, update my blog and make another flask of coffee its off out again to see what else we can find........

Pictures!

Only a few words and some recent Little Owl images.........

Site No 11

Site No 11

Site No 107

Site No 107

I had a hunch!

This evening I went back over to Gilmorton to check on the "haystack" owl that I saw last night, site No 107 and true to form he was there again, better light this time around although still distant. 

On the way back I stopped off at a potential area that just  oozes Little Owl, this must have been the tenth time I have stopped here without ever seeing anything before, well if at first you don't succeed try try again, and again, and again and again............

Well tonight my perseverance finally paid off, a pair of Little Owls were located in an mature Ash Tree, the weather conditions made it a bit easier to locate them as they were sheltering out of the wind but in the sun, a tactic I have used before!!!

 

 Owl No 1, getting some sun!

Owl No 2, hiding in the depths of the tree.

The new territory located tonight takes my overall tally to 126 different sites, although it is very pleasing to attain images at a new site I am not totally happy due to the fact that I had to use a flash to lose the shadows, the owls didn't appear to be bothered though.

Watching The World Go By.

Its been ages since I did some "normal" birding so with that thought in mind I decided to pop over to "Rids Patch" late this afternoon so see if anything interesting had dropped in. Upon approaching the first scrape I managed 2 new site ticks in the form of a Black Headed Gull & Lesser Black Backed Gull, common birds I know but the first sightings I have made since I set myself the challenge of seeing 75 different species in 12 months.

2 new Gulls for the patch.

Although a very poor image it was a pleasing sight to see 12 Snipe busily feeding on the second scrape. They did however have to keep dodging the presence of a low fly over Buzzard who scattered them on two occasions.

Feeding Snipe

Nothing much more of note was seen apart from another 2 patch ticks in the form of Collard Dove & Wren taking my overall tally to 72. At this rate it shouldn't be too difficult to reach my target of 75 as long as I don't leave it so long until my next visit!

On the way home I stopped off at Gilmorton and caught with some Little Owls that I hadn't seen for quite sometime. At site No 107 a single bird was sitting out on a haystack just watching the world go by!

I then did a drive by at site No 92 and this juvenile was posing nicely near the entrance to the nest hole.

Also finished making the final 7 Little Owl nest boxes this morning, but I'm holding back on painting them until my "colour poll" has finished, (top right of this blog) if you haven't yet voted please do so by clicking on your preference and then click on the vote button.............thanks.

Owless.......nearly!

Today just seemed to be totally devoid of owls, I was owl n about for around 7 hrs and must have visited over 20 different sites. In total 4 owls were seen at 3 sites and one of those was just a fleeting glimpse...........just what is going on????

Anyhow, as it was a pretty uneventful day and I have nothing much more to say so I'll just leave you with a few images of three of the birds that did show!

As usual, double click on any image for a more detailed and larger version.

Site No 11 at Claybrook Magna, unusual perch?

Site No 107 at Gilmorton, an alert adult.

 Say aaaargh!!!

Site No 107 at Gilmorton, an alert juvenile, one I rung a few weeks ago.

Say aaaargh again!!!

Cannibalism

Got out again tonight but not as early as I would have liked, working late and a front near side puncture put paid to that!! Anyway, I went out to site 107 near to Gilmorton, although I knew there was 3 Little Owl chicks at this site, (because I helped ring them a couple of weeks ago) but I was yet to see them out the nest. Well tonight was the night and it was a bloody brilliant couple of hours, the owls showed really well and considering how late it was the light was good too.  

I had an hunch the owls would be in and around an old hay stack across the road from the nest tree, so this was where I parked up the Landrover and waited. Soon after one of the adults showed, I couldn't believe my luck, it was now up to me to nail a few half decent images.

As usual, double click on any image for a larger and more detailed version.

Adult owl shows.

Ten minutes later two of the juveniles popped out of the gap in between the hay rolls, I wondered where the third juvenile was?

Juvenile No 1 & 2

It didn't take long for my question of the whereabouts of the third Juvenile to be answered, the adult owl was eating it!!!! Something gory had obviously happened to it and like any good parent.......waste not want not!!!

Adult owl and the recently departed juvenile No 3....hmmmm tastes familiar!!

The older of the juveniles decided to go on walk about, I think it was looking for some different type of food as it was fed up with eating its little brother.

Getting brave now, dropped down onto the ground, can you see the ring I helped fit on its right leg?

The parent had had its fill of cannibalism and flew onto a nearby plastic fence post, this could be an "owl in flight" photo opportunity?

So so so nearly nailed it, not quite what I was hoping for but I am well satisfied with the results............for now!

The second Juvenile went on walk about and offered some excellent photo opportunities.

The light had all but gone now so it was time to get going, a hundred yards down the road I came across the second adult sitting on top of a sign post. It posed really well for me, shame I hadn't captured it went the light was better.

I decided to take a detour on the way back through the village of Gilmorton and just as I was leaving the village I spotted a Little owl sitting on top of an old barn in a disused farm yard, another new site without even trying.........GET IN THERE!!!!!

I had to bump the ISO up to 1600 on the camera but never the less it was a record shot of a bird at site 109. I hung around for ten minutes or so to see if it would come any closer..........it didn't but I did see a second bird, maybe there will be some chicks as well, I will investigate this later in the week.

In between Gilmorton and home I also confirmed breeding successes at site No 68, Peatling Magna (2 juveniles) and site No 53, Countesthorpe (2 juveniles). With tonight's counts it now takes this years confirmed juveniles so far to 42 at 19 different sites, beating last years 39 at 20 sites.

What a brilliant and very enjoyable night!

Little Owl Ringing

On Monday night just gone I invited some members of the Charnwood Ringers Group over to south Leicestershire to accompany myself and my mate Daz around some of my local Little Owl sites. From previous investigations I knew of 5 easy accessible sites that had "Pullus" in the nest, apparently this is the proper terminology for juveniles still in the nest, you learn something every day.......or so they say!.

The intention was to ring the Pullus, obviously the ringing can only be done by qualified and licenced individuals, hence the Charwood Ringers were in attendance. Each ring has its own unique identity on it and if ever the owl (with the ring on) was encountered again it would help to provide vital information on the birds age and movements.

Here we can see the gathering at the first location not far from Kilby Bridge, we were at my Little Owl site No 91 and the only occupied breeding box this year that had any success. 

We had a real good start to the evening and a bit of good fortune at this site, when the door to the box was opened there were  three owls inside, two youngsters and the adult hen owl.  All three were taken out and placed carefully inside a cotton retaining bag. These were then hung up inside the Landrover, one by one the owls were taken out of the bags, they were checked over, weighed, measured and finally rung. It was quite surprising how calm and struggle free the birds remained at all times.

All the vital statistics were documented, here you can see the adults birds brood patch. Apparently in the breeding season the hen bird loses her lower breast feathers, her veins are then closer to the skin surface which in turn allows her to regulate the eggs temperature whilst conducting her incubating duties....another thing learnt!!!!

Ringing and measuring the adult bird, yes the pliers look quite terrifying, but rest assured they are a precision piece of equipment and cause absolutely no harm to the birds what so ever. The correct way of handling and holding the bird is clearly demonstrated in these next two images.

 Weighing the bird whilst it remained inside the retaining bag.

Studying the data!

 Juvenile little Owl, post ringing and just before being returned safely to the nest box.

The next location we visited was my record breaking seven egg site at Whetstone, site No 31. Good news and bad news here. The bad news was, only four pullus had survived so far, but the good news is they are all very healthy, fighting fit  and very very cute!!!

By now the evening was getting on and the light drawing in so we made a quick dash over to Gilmorton to check out the third location, site No 107. After some slight difficulties with a very tight entrance hole the 3 juveniles were rung and quickly returned.

It was whilst at site 107 I had my first go at ringing, a little awkward at first but I soon got the hang of it............with some expert instruction of course!!!!

Yours truly with my first rung Little Owl, first of many hopefully!

After all was complete at site 107 we drove only a few hundred yards up the road to site 92, here we successfully rung another 3 juveniles. It was now 9.30pm and there was still one more site to do, we made a final dash over to the Broughton Astley/Cosby village boundary and site 35. Here we rung another 3, by the time we had finished it was completely dark but that didn't deter Daz having his first go at ringing, judging by his smile he enjoyed it too!

After all was complete we all retired to the local pub for a very rewarding couple of pints, it was a really enjoyable and very educating evening with a total of 16 Little Owls being rung.

Many thanks to the four members of the ringing group who gave up their time to come and help me.

Charnwood Ringers - L to R, Nigel Judson, Chris Flint, Andy Smith and Neil Hagley.

Arty Farty!

Over the last two days I have been going about my normal owling business only this time I was in the good company of Andy Rouse the well know wildlife photographer. We had loads of plans, loads of sites to visit and loads and loads of Little Owls to photograph............well that was the plan!!! The weather has been just abysmal and it hardly stopped raining for the two days he was with me. To make the most of the daylight hours (what day light?) we had two early starts and staked out numerous locations.

Below are a few of the images I managed (as usual double click on it for greater detail), not a lot to show considering the amount of time we spent, but not too bad when you take into account the constant rain and very low light levels. We had some very quiet periods when the owls just did not show, so this gave me plenty of opportunity to discuss with Andy some of the photo techniques he employs which results in some stunning images.

Among all the tips and advice he gave me one of the best was to try and achieve an atmospheric image that shows not only the owl but the natural surroundings it lives in too. Given the right situation, conditions and some accommodating owls I will be trying this new technique out in the future.

My first attempt at an "atmospheric image" normally I would have cropped this image so it would have shown just the owl and hardly any thing else. Here we can see (if you look hard enough) the owl just emerging from its nest entrance with some superb tree detail.

The same bird a split second or so late, I've had to crop out some really horrible areas of the image and thus the composition is not quite right but I think it works.................nearly???

The next site we visited is a bird and an setting I have taken on many previous occasions, only this time I have tried to be a little bit more "arty" by allowing the image to "breath" a bit. Can you see the owl?

Another attempt at being a little more artistic, nicely posed owl and some nice detail on the tree trunk and nothing else that is distracting to the eye!

This next image shows a nice natural "green" habitat that I particually like that shows off the bird well, but due to the foreground branches I had to crop it more that I would have liked. Obviously the horrible grey sky on the right hand side is really distracting to the eye and completely spoils the image.

This next image was taken from quite a considerable distance and I would normally have cropped right into the bird making it hardly usable, but because I haven't been as severe as normal with the cropping it makes the image a little more usable.

Finally this last image shows I thought a little more about my positioning and got a nice composition of the Little Owl and on an interesting branch..........but what spoils it is the horrid gap in the background trees that shows the sky, doooohhhhh!!!! 

It was a real experience and privilege spending some time with Andy and hopefully his advice will pay dividends for me in the future??...........Cheers Andy.