Owling 19th Sept

Went out for an owl this evening, only visited two sites but they both scored like Sergeo Aguero.

First site produced three Little Owl (two juvs and an adult bird I think) tucked down out of the wind on posts or even lower down on the floor which did provide some photo opportunites when the hedgerow wasn't getting in the way.....

this looked better uncropped so uncropped it stays

and also provided a decent(ish) opportunity for a game of spot the owl.............

The way to the next site took me past the Tawny Owl tree cavity mentioned in a previous blog post and my luck was in as the bird was showing fantasically well as I drove past...............and continued to show well as I parked up as far away as I could whilst keeping the bird in view.........and continued to show well whilst I hung the scope out the car window and faffed around getting it aligned.....and then decided to drop back down into the cavity approximately 3 seconds before a photo of it was obtained. Arse. The light was still good at this point too and would have made for a decent photo. Unfortunately you get another photo in the series titled "owls inside trees":

stunning I know.

The Hooded detective then proceeded to stake out the suspects safehouse for about an hour until he got bored and went to look at this instead:

This is the same bird as featured in a couple of other posts where it normally likes to sit in a nice tree cavity out of the wind. Today it had eschewed its normal position for a much more exposed perch higher up the tree and as a result was very nearly missed.

Didn't stay here long in favour of heading back to see whether the Tawny was showing again as there was just enough light left to achieve a photo (when light drops to a certain level my camera becomes 100% useless, rather than the normal 80%) and when I rolled up there it was! The little git foiled me again though and promptly hopped out of view. I stayed watching the cavity for another 30 or so minutes during which time the bird peeked out of its hole twice more and another Tawny was calling in the surrounding area but it was far too dark for a photo by this stage.