Lap of the gods!

I re-visited my site 47 last night, this is where the recovering juvenile was set free after 2 weeks of nursing (see previous post). It appears that on it's first night of freedom it took flight into the darkness only to be rediscovered the next morning sitting on the floor near the farmhouse!

It was collected up and re-positioned in the upturned washing basket and left all day to watch the world go by. It fed well, two bowls of mashed up dog food and fresh rabbit (along with the fir) where soon consumed. Around 10.00pm the basket was again lifted at one end so it could venture out, by morning it had gone and hasn't been seen since! Another bowl of food has been left out at the release site just in case it returns again, its now in the lap of the gods to how it fairs, if I get any more news of it I will let you know.

Whilst there last night the male owl was again tracked down, I managed a couple of images of him (below) near to his nest site before he got bored of me and flew off!

Owl rescue

Over the weekend I received a call from the landowner where my Little Owl site No 47 is located. Its not far from the village of Peckleton and I haven't seen an owl here since 2009! So when the call came in telling me that a juvenile Little Owl had been rescued I was very interested.

The juvenile was found at the foot of a tree 2 weeks ago, at the time it appeared lifeless and had a severely damaged right eye. It was taken in and kept in an outhouse, an upturned plastic washing basket was used to retain it and keep it safe. During its time in captivity it has been fed fresh rabbit and dog food, this combination seems to have worked wonders! It now looks a picture of health and its eye is heeling well. On the odd occasion it has even been let out for a fly around the shed!

Juvenile Little Owl, on the mend.

We discussed the situation at length and it seemed we had three options, release it, keep it or hand it in? It was a bit of a dilemma but after all the pros and cons were considered we were in agreement that  a reintroduction back to its natural surroundings would be best. Our major concern with this option was it had become "humanised" and totally reliant on being fed. 

Due to the fact that its parents were still about (I'd seen them on arrival) we hoped they would accept it back and teach it the skills required to survive. We took the washing basket outside and positioned it near to the nest tree, image below.  We then placed a couple of bricks on the top to try and deter the local cats, we then retreated to a safe distance and observed. 

After around 30 minutes there was a visitor.......one of the parents!

They both seemed confused at first, but in time the adult got nearer and nearer until they were almost making contact through the holes.

The plan was working perfectly.....so far! The next and final stage of the plan was around 9.00pm the washing basket will be lifted at one end allowing either the juvenile out or the parent owl in, at the time of writing I am waiting to hear how things went, to be continued................ 

 Whilst waiting for the adult birds to find the juvenile there was a few photo opportunities, below.

Juvless!

Last nights trip out didn't produce any evidence of more new juveniles sites. I think they are now getting to the age where they don't hiss as much, making them a lot harder to locate.

I did however locate a new Little Owl territory, site No 189! I was looking around the village of Bitteswell and came across a very owly looking area, whilst I was scanning the trees for juveniles I picked up this adult bird giving me the stare!

Poor light and distance resulted in just a "record" image, not too bad though considering it was 10.00pm! 

Food for thought

One of my Little Owl sites (No 130) is located in someones back garden and the nest entrance is in a really obscure position high up in an ash tree. Consequently getting some decent images would be really tricky, however the local resident came to the rescue as she fitted a motion detecting inferred camera near the nest entrance and yesterday she sent me some clips.

I have chosen one of the clips which shows the parent owl making a couple of visits with a juicy worm, just click on the link below to view. 

Juveniles being fed at my Little Owl site No 163

I know the quality isn't brilliant but you can clearly make out what is going on, having seen these clips it has given me food for thought! I think it is well overdue that I too should stat to do some movie footage of my owls.........now wheres that video camera?

More Juveniles!

Two more Little Owl sites with juveniles were located tonight, with these added to the ones already found it now takes this years tally (so far) to 32 different proven breeding sites. Across all these sites there is at least 77 juveniles, making it an average of 2.41 per site, not bad hey?

A pair of fluff balls at my site No 168.

Hopefully many more still to come.............

Close to home!

Didn't get out as early as I'd wanted to this evening, consequently I ended up searching more local to home than I usually do. My site No 10 in the next door village of Cosby was the target destination. I wasn't hopeful at all, I have only ever seen a single owl here on a few occasions and the last time was over 2 years ago!!

It ended up being a superb visit, just seeing an owl would have been a bonus but it got better than that, much better in fact. In total five different owls were seen, two adults and three fledged juveniles........what a result!

Juvenile No 1 had taken up residence in the rafters of a barn.

 

The second juvenile was located in the old pig pen.

And believe it or not the third juvenile was located (through its "hissing") hiding underneath a stack of old slabs!

Juvenile No 3 clambering about on the combine harvester.

Due to how the juveniles were scattered about I now understand why both of the parent owls were perched up high on the steel girders of an old barn, the high elevation enabled them to keep a watchful eye on all that was going on.

The hen owl on the girder.

The male owl taking his turn to watch out.

When the hen owl muscled out the male from the girder perch, he would re-positioned himself on the wing mirror of the combine harvester.

Just goes to show that even if an owl has not been seen for an absolute age one must not give up looking for them, especially when it is a close to home as these birds are!

Oh I nearly forgot, another new Little Owl territory was also located tonight in the village of Leire, site No 188! It was very late and I was having a slow drive around the country lanes following a tip off from one of the local residents (thanks Kate) when this pair were located on some field posts. It was far too dark for images but I'll be back, very soon!!! 

Baby shortage!

Over the weekend a few more of my sites yielded yet more fledged juveniles. Most of them have been out in the big wide world for around a week or so now, and they are wising up very quickly.  Locating them is becoming extremely difficult, just like their parents, they are perfecting the art of disguise and keeping hidden!

At some of the locations the only clue to their presence was the distinctive, and repetitive "hissing", mostly coming from deep within a bush or heavily leaved tree. But with a little patience I did get a few brief glimpses.

At my site No 87 near to Willoughby a pair of them were located on distant fence posts, after an hours wait one of them came nearer, it was grubbing around in an old manure pile when I think the "clicking" of my camera shutter startled it, needless to say its instincts of survival soon had it taking for cover. 

Over at my site No 120 near to Slawston it was a Little Owl mad camp, there was no fewer than seven owls showing in total, two adults and five juveniles! Getting some decent images proved very difficult as they were all high up in the trees, eventually one of the juveniles landed in a hollow on a tree trunk and this image was in the can.

Beings as I was in the area I chose to re-visit site No 135 at Cranoe, I was very fortunate to have managed some cracking images from here one evening last week. The male owl showed again but the light wasn't as complimentary, therefore most of the images were just poorer versions.  

Site 149 over at Walton was one of those where I could hear the juveniles hissing but they just wouldn't come out, it was very frustrating and I had to make do with an image of one of the parents.

Four juveniles were showing really well at site No 184 near to Kilby, trouble was they were too far away! As with a previous site, one juvenile obviously felt sorry for me and came closer, trouble was it kept partially hidden behind a field gate!

I spent quite some time at site No 182 near Fleckney, after only 5 minutes of arriving I had confirmation of juveniles. The slight difference in the hissing pitch coming from a bush told me to expect 2 juveniles, but after a 3 hour wait neither of them showed! In the end I got fed up with the waiting, a decision was needed. Do I call it a day and depart or should I take a walk? The latter was chosen as I didn't want to go away empty handed after all the time I'd invested.

I crept up to the bush in question and peeped in, I could make out both juveniles but one was too deep in and totally obscured. I managed to get into a position where I could just about get an image of the nearer one through the foliage, once attained I departed slowly and both birds remained undisturbed.   

Finally, my run continues of finding at least one new Little Owl site every month since my study began. This latest one, No 187 was located at 10.15pm near to the village of Bruntingthorpe. It was sitting on top of a telegraph pole as I was driving home, luckily as I reversed and parked right underneath him it didn't budge, I had to manual focus and over expose to get anything like an image.......if that's what you'd call it! 

So all in all the returns are not too bad on the fledgling front so far this year, the average of juveniles per site is up on last year but I am still down on total birds and site numbers. The latest tally is 69 juveniles across 29 different sites (average 2.38 per site), compared to last years total of 82 juveniles across 39 different sites (average 2.1 per site).

So keep your fingers crossed for me, another 10 sites and 13 juveniles required..........at least!!!

June round up.

 Sat 25th June

As usual Friday night was spent on the lash (local slang/term for plenty of beer) , it was a heavier night than usual due to me winning £500.00 on a scratch card in the club. Needless to say I was slower than dead on Saturday morning and Daz was elected by me to do the driving!

First off we visited a Barn Owl breeding site that is located in a derelict building in the south of the county. We needed to see how the single chick was fairing in preparation for the up and coming ringing night. The barn is a good two field walk from the nearest parking point, so Daz was elected to check it out alone.

The distant barn, too far for me!

Good old Daz making his way back, good news the chick is growing and doing well.

The next stop was at a Little Owl site in South Wigston, whilst driving to the nest tree one of the adults was seen sitting on a pile of logs, watching us!

We sat and watched for a while and then to our surprise a youngster emerged from within the wood pile, superb another breeding success for this years records. No other images were possible but there are four juveniles at this site.

Daz then spotted another juvenile in the trees, not a Little Owl, but a Kestrel!

Another site where we recorded some fledged juveniles was at my site No 53 near to Countesthorpe. Here we first located an adult owl sitting on the edge of a nearby barn.

As we surveyed the open fields we notched up no fewer than four juveniles. One of them obliged for an image when it posed on top of the barn.

Both adult owls then showed well on the barn, to our amazement they started mating, I ask you right in front of the youngsters! Could there be a second breeding attempt at this site???

We called a premature end to the day due to our hangovers, we headed off home and then to the pub!

Sunday 26th June

I didn't get out until late on Sunday, it was a glorious sunny evening and I went back to South Wigston to further investigate a site that Daz and I had checked out the day before. En route I passed site no 105, here I located a juvenile sitting in a tree, nothing special about the image apart from I captured it omitting a pellet.

I arrived at my "stake out" site around 8.15pm, I had suspicions of a nest cavity and I wanted to see if anything would emerged as the light faded. Around 9.30pm just as the sun was setting a juvenile clambered out of the cavity and sat at the entrance.

After a further 30 minute wait another juvenile showed, it was really dark by now and this was my last image of the night. Then at 10.00pm a third juvenile appeared, the three of them waited patiently for mum and dad to show.

Monday 27th June

Tonight it had been arranged for the Charnwood Ringers to visit and the plan was to ring more Little & Barn Owls. Sadly during my sites surveys in the preceding days the 3 Little Owl sites I'd got my eye on all let me down! I missed the juveniles at one site, they fledged earlier than I expected, a second site failed to produce any breeding evidence and the third site had been taken over by Stock Doves!

Never the less, we soldiered on and concentrated on Barn Owls. Originally we were going to visit 3 separate sites, but it was decided not to visit the third as we had already rung 3 of the 5 chicks there and a re-visit could cause distress and make the juveniles fledged too early.

At the first of the Barn owl sites the box was very high up in the eaves of a dutch barn, luckily I had arranged to borrow the land owners tractor that had had a cage fitted to it.

Andy getting ready to be hoisted up!

Andy up in the eaves, he just managed to reach the chicks.

There were three very healthy chicks, all were rung and returned as soon as possible.

Due to finishing the ringing earlier than planned I opted to go in search of more fledged Little Owls. I also wanted to try and get a "day light" image of the owls at my recently located site No 184 near to Wistow. It was a waiting game but eventually I managed an image, it wasn't really what I was after, more of a twilight image but better than my previous attempts.

3 juveniles were also noted, disappointingly I never managed a decent image because they were the other side of a gate!!!

Tuesday 28th June

The evening was spent searching for more fledged juveniles, at site No 75 no juveniles were noted but I did manage this comical image of one of the adults at the nest entrance.

Site No 22 produced another 4 fledgling, 1 was a Little Owl and 3 were Kestrels, amazingly the separate nests were only about 2 feet apart!

 

Juvenile Kestrel.

The last fledged Little Owl located on the night was a bit bazaar and a mystery to me. The nest cavity had been checked on two previous occasions in the last few weeks and nothing!!! No owls and no eggs so when I drove past and saw this Little Owl juvenile looking back at me it was a surprise to say the least.

Weds 29th June

This evening I ventured further a field in search of more juveniles, it was over in the eastern part of my survey area that I chanced upon my newest Little Owl site so far, No 186! I managed some half decent images but the light wasn't helping as it seemed to be always coming from behind the bird!

At site No 186 I also saw a second owl and heard the distinctive hissing of a juvenile, although I couldn't see it as it was hiding deep in the hedgerow!

And finally to bring things right up to date a final juvenile image from my site No 154, there's at least 2 juveniles here taking my proven tally to 22 different sites...............so far!!!!