Time and a place

Now I like owls as much as the next person. Probably more infact. Much more. But when sleep is interrupted by a sexed-up Tawny Owl making an enormous amount of noise outside my window at 2am my previous opinion of owls goes out the window!
Shut up you feathered bugger and go and murder the local voles! Better still, have a go at one of the local cats, I bet you could have one. Have a punt at the fat one that looks like a Friesian cow. You know you want to.

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.

Owling 10th September

Buoyed by my sucessful owl encounter yesterday I headed out for an Owl earlier this evening and predictably headed straight back to the site where I was yesterday! No owl present on arrival though which was disappointing but not altogether unexpected as the weather wasn't the best for owling today. About 5 minutes later when I was just considering my next move a small movement caught my eye and turned out to be the Little Owl popping out from the cavity and into view. Scooooooooooooooooore. So photo's were taken:

This individual remained in view for the best part of half an hour before I decided that the poor beggar had probably had enough of the idiot parked nearby trying to take shit phonescoped images so I left to check other Owl sites in the area.

As I approached my next owl site (well actually I visited another site inbetween but as it was shit and rainy at this point I didn't see anything) I peered as usual at a tree cavity that always looks very owlish and was rewarded with a Tawny Owl's face looking back at me. Unfortunately the bird didn't linger very long once it realised I had seen it and dropped down further into the cavity, thus no photographs were taken. Well, except this one.

Tawny Owl inside a tree. You'll have to take my word on this one.

 As it was getting rapidly dark at this point I was torn between parking up a safe distance away and hoping for the Tawny to show itself again in the hope of a photo or continuing up the road to look at the Little Owls. In the end I waited around 10 minutes, saw no sign of it reappearing and carried on. Which turned out to be a good notion as 2 minutes later I was looking at this beastie:

I think this is one of this years juveniles.

After a few minutes spent eye to eye with this fiersome chap I moved slightly up the road and picked up two more Little Owl perched on fenceposts, the dungheap and then a nearby tree. Hooded birders normal photographic skills came back with a bang at this moment and produced this award winning image:

phwooaar

The light was pretty much gone at this point so I headed home and was rewarded with my first Badger in ages.

badger just before it melted me with its flame vision