Short But Sweet - on 27th March, 2014

On Thursday my pal Titus and I had one of our weekly afternoons out, checking up on the owls. The afternoon started off bright and sunny, but the forecast was not good, so our hopes were not overly high.

At my Little Owl Site No.44 we clocked both the owls sitting out after a hail/sleet shower. Brief attempts at photography came to nothing worthwhile.

Further on, at my LO Site No.46, it had brightened up a bit and both owls appeared shortly after we stopped. I was pleased to see that the cattle were still not in the field, but we only observed distantly from the road.

It was not much further on to LO Site No.41, where we'd erected an owl box. The birds spent all winter on the far side of the field, but lately they seem to have abandoned that side and returned to the side with their original nest tree. As the ground was now dry enough to park on the roadside, we decided to make this our lunch break spot so that we could observe and try and see where the owls were spending their time. We parked about 80 metres from the old nest tree, so that we could keep an eye on all their usual haunts. We'd only been there about ten minutes when an owl flew up from behind the hedge and landed high up in the old nest tree, disappearing from sight almost immediately. It must have been another 20 minutes, or so, before I spotted it again, well-camouflaged by the multitudinous twigs that surround the tree. You can see what I mean by the image below.

Little Owl - my Site No.41

We sat there for quite a long time, waiting for the owl to make a move - which it didn't! - so decided to move on to the next destination. A slow cruise past the tree gave us a better photo opportunity. The car makes quite a good hide in these circumstances!

Little Owl - my Site No.41

Our next stop was at LO Site No.34, which featured in my last post. I was glad to have got that session in my hide under my belt as we arrived to find that there were now cattle in the field. Both owls were sitting in the nest cavity, and we sat and watched for a while. I then noticed that there was an owl in the hedgerow at LO Site No.36 which, amazingly, is only about 150 metres from Site No.34, and in the same field! As neither Titus nor I had any photos of No.36 from closer than around 150 metres, I invited Titus to try a stealthy approach on foot, but Titus declined so off I set.

The owls at No.34 stayed put when I got out of the car, but disappeared back into their nest hole as I approached the gate into the field. I'd decided that mixing with the cattle might help me approach No.36 without disturbing the owl. This was my view when I'd gone about 50 metres.

Little Owl - my Site No.36

Using this technique, and only approaching the owl obliquely, I got to within about 15 metres of the owl. I'm rather pleased with the results, especially the colours of the diffused background.

Little Owl - my Site No.36

To cut a long story short, no further owls were seen and torrential rain curtailed our activities and sent us homeward. It was still throwing it down when, an hour and a half later, I arrived back home more than two hours earlier than intended. It had been a short afternoon, but the image from No.36 was the sweetener for me!