Twiddling my thumbs....!

Another long slog today, the majority of my time was spent stuck sitting in the Landrover twiddling my thumbs whilst waiting for the Little Owls to show. In between the rain storms they did obliged.......eventually!

Taken at site No 87, not so much a flight shot, more a take off shot really!

This one was nervous of the overhead Buzzards!

Grubbing around hunting for worms after the rain.

A complete downpour hit the area and amazingly this owl braved it for a few minutes whilst it had an "outstretched wing bath", this is the third time I have witnessed these strange antics.

I also visited my site No 177 at Bitteswell, after a long wait the sun finally came out,  followed soon after by the owls, I was then able to make the most of the opportunity and get my best images from here to date.

The hen owl at the nest entrance.

And finally, my first ever image of the pair together.

Dunnock for dinner!

Had the day off work today, I went out mid morning and at the first site I sat quietly in the Landrover waiting for the owls to show, after a lengthy 4 hours the male owl finally showed, and it was well worth the wait as he had brought back dinner for his demanding youngsters, in the form of a............Dunnock!

At the second site of the day the wait was only a matter of minutes, it was also the first time ever that I have seen a pair here! They gave me some really nice close up views whilst they scrambled around a farmers muck heap looking for food.

A cracking day and some images that I am really pleased with, it could have been better though had it not been so drawn out and the fact that I totally messed up a couple of chances of a decent "flight" shot, not to worry though, there is always tomorrow as I have another day off work!

Barnie Bliss

Last night involved a chase around a few breeding sites to make sure all was well in readiness for this evenings the visit of the Charnwood ringing group. My original plan was to escort then to 4 different Little Owl sites to ring 13 Little Owl chicks, but since Daz and I made good time we had the opportunity to pop in and see my mate Glynn at Wistow. 

Glynn has a pair of Barn Owls nesting in one of his barns so we thought we'd just check on their progress, and to our delight they have 5 healthy chicks, so this now puts a bit of pressure on tonight's visit as we have to squeeze in another site, a nice problem to have!

Sleeping babies!   

A double Bonus!!!

A late email from Mark Skevington on Saturday night followed by a phone call from Col Green early this morning got me owl n about earlier than expected. They had both been over to the village of South Kilworth as reports were filtering out to the masses that a very rare bird had been sighted, the bird in question was a Hoopoe and due to how often they are seen it is classed as a "mega" for Leicestershire. 

Whilst they were both there waiting for the Hoopoe to show they saw a Little Owl and as they are both good old boys they let me know. As this was a potentially new site for me I soon had all my kit gathered and was on my way. I was hoping someone there who was"twitching" the Hoopoe would be able to point out the owl to me, but on arrival I was surprised to find myself alone! It was a fairly large area and there were loads of likely spots, there was no option but to give Col a quick call and with his expert directions he soon had me looking at it through my binoculars. 

It was fairly distant but no doubt, a Little Owl and new site 181. 

After a while a few members of the Leicestershire twitching scene starting turning up, the Hoopoe hadn't been seen since Saturday evening, but unperturbed they got kitted up with their walkie-talkies, scopes and binoculars and off they went in an eager search, that was my signal to depart.

A few stop offs on the way back produced some more owl sightings but the best of the morning was still to come. As I was passing my Little Owl site No 87 I noticed a solitary owl sitting on top of a stack of farm manure, the gate to the field was open so in I drove! I was taking my time and being very methodical as I didn't want to scare the owl off, but I needn't have worried because this was one confiding owl!

It seemed to be aware of my presence but it wasn't fazed in the slightest, I pushed my luck and drove nearer and nearer, it was posing fantastically for me.

I think I may have got just a little too close as it suddenly came to life and postured in an upright and alert manner, then I noticed it was a rung bird!!! 

              

To my knowledge no one else has rung any Little Owls in this area for years, so surely it must be one of my birds from 2010? Of the 16 juveniles that were rung last year this is the very first I have actually re-located since they dispersed from their natal sites. At this stage I can't be sure which ringing site it came from but the two nearest sites are 1.25 & 1.75 miles away.........Superb or what???

Shoot em all!

Yesterday Col Green and myself set about the task of checking more nest sites in readiness for the chick ringing that will start this Monday. It was a day of mixed results, nothing had moved into any of the Barn Owl boxes we checked, apart from that is yet another Stock Dove which was on two eggs. 

On the Little Owl front we drew blanks a several nest box sites but another three natural sites produced positive results. An incubating owl was on 2 eggs at Gilmorton,  at Broughton Astley there were 3 chicks in the nest and at least 3, possibly even 4 chicks were in a nest near to Market Bosworth.

We saw a few adult owls during the day, this was my only image though.

A very healthy Little Owl chick from the Broughton Astley site.

It wasn't quite so good news from a couple of natural Little Owl sites though, in fact it was terrible news! They have both been reliable "good viewing" locations with previous breeding successes, but not this year, oh no! They have both been forcibly evicted, by Jackdaws! This is now the seventh different site where this has happened this year, dam Corvids.............shoot em all!!!

Pre boozing owling!

Its now late and I have just got back from the pub, so my apologises for any errors, slander or absolute codswallop in this post, it is now 1.37am on Saturday morning and I am totally wasted, so forgiveness is conditional!!!

Right lets get down to business, two days ago, (Weds evening to be exact) I went to watch my best mate Daz have a gliding experience flight at Sibertoft airfield, near to Market Bosworth.  Once he was airborne I went for a bit of a mooch (that's a look around in Leicestershire slang) and I chanced upon a group of mature fruit trees (apple) that looked very owly. As I was doing my investigations I found a potential nest cavity in one of the trees, it was only two feet from the ground and when I peered in I was shocked to discover an adult Little Owl and at least three chicks, (get in there new site 180!!!). I didn't have my camera with me at the time so it was pencilled in for a return visit asap.

Well this evening the opportunity arose for a return visit (before the pub of course!!) and after a bit of research and networking I secured the permission from the landowner to enter the fields. I positioned the Landrover near to the nest entrance and waited........

After what seemed an age the male owl was sighted, during the next hour or so I sat quietly and observed him move from tree to tree and nearer and nearer and eventually he came close enough for some photo opportunities........

Yep some superb views were had  but the contrasting light proved difficult to attain a real top notch image, the light was good but the dark shadows were my nemesis today, excuses excuses I know, but if only I had a Canon 500mm prime lens every image would be perfect!............anybody got one???

Long Slog Update.....

I have now finished reviewing my images from yesterdays "long slog" in the rain over at South Wigston and here are a few more images that have been salvage (with some post processing) to the point where I think they are "useable"?

A Long Slog

Absolutely typical, a days owling planned and what happens??? Rain, rain and more bloody rain, should have known.....its a bank holiday!! 

So this morning I was in a dilemma, stay in and do some DIY or brave the atrocious weather conditions and see if I could find some obliging owls, mmmmmmmm that's a hard decision........NOT!!!!

I headed for my Little Owl site No 105 over near the village of South Wigston, a huge strip of private pasture land that fortunately I have permission to access in my Landrover, thank goodness I have as I wasn't going to be walking around in this deluge! On the way I stopped off at several other owl sites, it wasn't surprising that nothing at all was showing, things looked bleak and I wasn't hopeful of seeing anything today.

I finally arrived at my destination just before midday, I opted to park near the nest tree which was used by the owls for breeding last year. My plan of attack was to sit it out and wait, if they had chicks the parent birds must show at some time?

Finally after 2 hours of waiting an adult owl showed at the nest entrance, but it wasn't in a hurry to go anywhere, it just sat there keeping dry whilst looking at the rain and me!

It took it an hour before it came out!!

The next few hours proved to me that they must have chicks that needed feeding, for every 30 minutes or so one of the adults would leave the comfort of the nest to brave the elements and go hunting. And it was worms they were after! The soggy conditions meant that they were in plentiful supply as no sooner had they left they were back with one dangling from their beak!!

I was very privilege to have had some fantastic views whilst they went about their business, below are a selection of images from the FIVE hours I spent there, sadly most are quite noisy (grainy) because as it was so dark I had no option but to shoot at an ISO of 1600 to get any kind of shutter speed for the flight shots (max 1,000th sec)................yes that's a proper excuse this time!!!

My favourite image of the day.

Considering the conditions, my photographic inexperience and modest camera equipment (oh for a Canon 500mm lens, anybody got one!!!!) I am very pleased with the results.

So yes it was a hard slog, but better than doing DIY!!!