For one reason or another, I've not done as much owling as I'd like to have done lately - with one exception which I'll probably cover in a later post. Most of what I have done has just been checking up on my owl sites, with little in the way of photography.
Tuesday 31st May, 2011
A short end-of-month visit to my local patch in the late evening resulted in only one owl being seen - the lone Little Owl at my Site No.02. I took the first image because it is relatively unusual to see this bird sitting out exposed on this pole. It then moved to a nearby tree, and allowed me to take the next image in beautifully glowing sunlight.
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| Little Owl - my Site No.02 |
Wednesday 1st June, 2011
On the way to an evening meeting in Northamptonshire, I called in at my latest Little Owl site (No.21) near Hungarton. I found this site on 21st April, had seen the owl again, silhouetted in the far distance when it was all but dark on my way back from Osprey Duty on 5th May and had not managed to get any images at all. I decided to sit it out here for a while, and bided my time with a picnic lunch in the car about 40 metres from the nest tree. I nearly missed spotting the owl, as it was mainly hidden - it's in the middle of the first image. This time I did manage to get some distant images, although my camera was in fuzzy focus mode again!
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| Little Owl - my Site No.21 |
This site is the most distant of my sites, but virtually on my route to Rutland Water, so monitoring it will be confined to those occasions.
Thursday 2nd June, 2011
This was a day when I had an evening duty at Rutland Water and although the owl was seen at Site No.21, no usable images were obtained.
Further on in my journey, near Marefield, a Kestrel was hovering close to the road, and quite low down. I stopped my car and, amazingly, it continued to concentrate on seeking out its prey. Unfortunately it was unsuccessful in this respect. This is the closest I've ever been to a Kestrel (apart from the one that I rescued from a blackthorn hedge in September, 2009), and I was pleased that it stayed there long enough for me to get some images.
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| Common Kestrel (male) - near Marefield |
On my way back from Rutland Water that night, as I sped along a busy road near Queniborough, I spotted a Little Owl out on a post. The only stopping place that I could see turned out to be too close to the owl and spooked it off to two posts further back. Before I could take a distant record shot it was off again. I'll call this my Site No.22, but I suspect that I'll not locate the owl again!
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