Find The Owl - 20th December, 2016

On Tuesday 20th December I set off in my car with a pot of bird-seed beside me with the express intention of taking an image for my blog's Christmas header. The sun was shining brightly, and I knew exactly where I was going. I took sandwiches with me so that I could have my lunch whilst waiting for the ideal shot. I'd even got it worked out that if no bird deigned to alight on my chosen item, I'd take the shot anyway, and superimpose a bird afterwards - if I could work out how!

I arrived to find utter chaos where a vehicle had left the road and smacked into the wall behind my chosen location. The whole location was covered with tape saying " Police Exclusion Site", or words to that effect. The tape was even wrapped round the object that I was hoping a bird would perch on! To cap it all, a couple of hundred metres down the road, the road was blocked by several farm vehicles. Instead of investigating, I departed to have my lunch elsewhere.

So my header image is now something different to what I intended!

For my lunch, I decided to stop at my Little Owl Site No.03. I rediscovered this site back in September after a period of 17 months with no signs of it being occupied. I'd revisited 7 times since then, and every time found the site to be occupied. I had noticed that, whenever I visited, the owl had kept an eye on me. This is behaviour that one fully expects from a Little Owl. What I found, however, is that on each visit the owl was getting progressively better at hiding from me, whilst maintaining its view of me.

At this stage, perhaps I'd better explain the situation before you start worrying that I'm overly intruding on the owl.  I observe the owl from inside my car, parked on the road some 28 metres from the nest tree (as measured on Google Earth). There is enough traffic in the village that the owl is used to it, but it must be perceiving that the behaviour from my car is different. It doesn't take fright and fly, but sits there observing me or going to sleep. I do actually have permission from the land-owner to enter the site, and did so a few times a few years ago, but I choose not to do so these days for fear of frightening the bird away.

On this day, I arrived, and didn't see the owl on my arrival. I was, however, relatively confident that he was there somewhere, and almost certainly watching me. Between bites of my sandwich I scanned the nest tree with my bins, and eventually detected a very slight movement - it was an eye, blinking. There was the owl!!!

So if you're already on holiday for the festive season and wan't something to keep you occupied for a minute or two, you can try and FIND THE OWL.

I suspect that you'll be unable to find it in this next image (taken with my lens out at 500mm) - I assure you that it's there and visible!

Little Owl (Athene noctua) - my LO Site No.03

  OK, so I'll make it easier for you. Here's the same image, more heavily cropped.

Little Owl (Athene noctua) - my LO Site No.03

Did you find it? I'll give you one last opportunity - it's right in the centre of this next tighter crop!

Little Owl (Athene noctua) - my LO Site No.03

I hope you've got it spotted now! If you haven't, you'll be able to appreciate how I sometimes miss seeing owls, even when I'm confident that they're there somewhere.

Thank you for dropping by, and thank you all for your very kind support in 2016, which was very much appreciated.

I take this opportunity to wish you a splendid Christmas, and a peaceful, healthy and prosperous New Year,  filled with wildlife.

                                                                        🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄

Congratualtions to those that found the owl. For those that couldn't find it, I've now added an image, below, with the owl's features indicated. The eye and the forehead are the only things visible!

I hope that you all had a great Christmas day.

THERE IT IS!!!