'Owls For Lunch'

For weeks I had resisted the temptation to jump in the car and speed down to Southampton for some Owl action, A couple of Short-eared Owls had taken up winter residence in a small field on the edge of a residential street which bordered on to an industrial park, prime real estate it would seem for Hampshire’s wintering Shorties, surrounded on 2 sides by footpaths, I had been seeing plenty of good shots posted online. Although I am always keen to get a few more SEO photographs the main reason I didn’t want to zip down the M3 was the light, I’ve taken plenty in crap light, and longed for some sunshine on these charismatic hunters. And mainly because Sundays my only free time during the winter for the past couple of months had been a mixture of cold, grey & wet days. I say wet, the weather had ranged from mildly damp to torrentially moist every time I considered getting the camera out.





It was 2 to go weekends until Christmas, and whilst most people were out doing there festive shopping, my weekends job entailed weeding the flower bed in the front garden. By 10.30am I was all done, plastered in mud and with plenty of sweat beads running down my forehead (sorry not a pretty picture) but the sun was out. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen it on a Sunday. I toyed with what I could do, the distance and time it would take me to get there and what I might see when I did get there, and then I thought Owls. They were showing yesterday so why not today, the skies were clear and there was barely any cloud. I raced indoors and grabbed my gear, 25 mins later I was pulling into a quiet side street on the outskirts of Southampton, 25 minutes is no exaggeration either, I literally flew down the A34 and M3. The sky, much to my annoyance got grayer and grayer the closer I got to the coast, to the point that I was almost considering turning around and going home as a few spots of rain hit the windscreen.

You always know you’re in the right place when you see the first guy in camo loitering around a hole in a hedge, I’m sure to many passer-by’s, this is a pretty strange sight, and it does baffle me also, you’re in the middle of a housing estate not the jungle what’s the need for Camo. After a brief chat he was quick to inform me the birds had been out earlier on this particular morning and there had been no sign of them since about half 9. It was now approaching 11.15am. I didn’t hurry to setup my gear but made sure I found myself a good vantage point along the roadside edge of this 10 acre or so area of wasteland that was probably a thriving meadow once upon a time.







Without any owls showing for the next half hour I honed my watching skills by amusing myself at the looks received from local residents and passers-by. Several stopping to make conversation and share their expert birding knowledge on me. I think one woman was pretty convinced the Short-eared Owls had nested their this year, raising about a dozen chicks, I’m not normally so directly skeptical to the uninitiated. But she came across as a pretentious know it all, so I felt I had to put her straight.







It had gone midday and I was just giving heading home some thought when a couple of Magpies glided over tempting up an owl from a midst the grass. Now I was alert, finger poised resting on the shutter willing the bird to come a little closer. The light was poor, but I’d worked with worse, the one great thing about Short-eared Owls is they come ridiculously close if you have enough patience and keep still. It took a while but eventually this gorgeous bird was hunting just 5 or 6 meters away. Coming so close at times to my long lens that I couldn’t fit it all in frame.





A second Owl much darker in colour joined it minutes later and they both zoomed across the tops of the grassland, dropping down to hunt regularly. It is an amazing thing to see such awesome wildlife in such an unlikely place, an area nothing better than wasteland bordered by train tracks, industrial estate, the Motorway and a residential street. With people walking around it at all times of day and dog walkers letting their mutts roam wild across it. And even though the light was rubbish and the weather depressing it was totally worth the drive!

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A Season For Barn Owls

With my last post in April time I have some catching up to do, so here is a flashback to mid spring and early June of this year. After the failures last year nationwide, 2014 seems to have been a very successful year for breeding Barn Owls and none more so than locally throughout the Test Valley.

I shall set the scene for you if you haven’t read one of my rambling blog posts before. I am lucky enough to live in a tiny hamlet which is sandwiched between the ever serene and beautiful chalk stream of the River Test and the vibrant ancient woodland of the nearby Harewood Forest. With sprawling farmland and quiet expanses of water meadow throughout the river valley, the area offers a bountiful habitat for any vole feeding predator. Kestrels are regular breeders and this year was no exception, Tawny Owls are also present in good numbers but this habitat also suites the silent winged ghost the Barn Owl.

2014 saw 2 Barn Owl pairs nesting nearby, one using an artificial nest box the other a wooden barn. The nests were no more than 700 metres apart from one another, an occurrence which seemed a bit alien to me, with both nests so close I was sure that both pairs of owl’s territories would easily encroach upon one another, with each Owls hunting range covering a far bigger area that 700 metres. Would this cause issues? Would there be enough food for both pairs to raise a successful brood? Gnawing at my mind a little I had to turn to the only trusted source we seem to rely on in the world these days ‘Google’.... and although each website had a slightly different take on how big an Owls home range would be. Each had the same answer for me; ‘Barn Owls are not particularly territorial and often live in overlapping home ranges’ something my bird books at home also seemed to back up a pretty clear answer to my first question.

My thoughts on prey shortages proved to be nothing more than a forgotten worry, as each pair raised a successful brood. The pair in the artificial nest box fledging 4 healthy looking chicks. I was lucky enough to spend quite a bit of time watching these noisy owlets from a neighbour’s garden two or three times a week for the duration of June. At the start of the month the adult birds would drop in with a fresh kill causing a frenzy of hissing and scrabbling from inside the box, each time a white fluffy head would appear briefly in the opening. By the end of the month four juvenile birds had fledged, dropping back down every now and then on to the nest box from the leafy branches above to be fed. Gangly, awkward and lacking the elegant aerial grace of their parents who were still tirelessly feeding them.

As a schedule one species I made sure I was at a safe distance, careful not to disturb or distress the adult birds or the newly emerged youngsters. Although sightings could be guaranteed each night, I found it quite hard to get some photographs I was happy with. Light being the main factor as the setting sun would drop down right behind the nest box casting all of the meadow into shadow. A lot of my photographs were taken in near dark at high ISO’s something I hope to remedy next year by some better planning. But nothing can take away the pure pleasure of watching these beautiful birds raise a family.

As I came home late last night a stunning white outline passed through my headlights beam landing on the railed fence to the side of the road, my first Barn Owl sighting in more than a month. Maybe one of this year’s young or could it be one of the local resident adults. No way of ever knowing but -whichever it was it brought a smile to my face!

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Barn Owl Bonanza

With the weather as it is at the moment, one minute wet one minute dry, it most be wreaking havoc on the habits of the local Barn Owl population. Having discovered a nest site in an old Barn on stilts no more that 200 yards from the house. I've been trying to make it a priority to get some decent photographs in the past couple of weeks.

Although the weather must prove pretty tricky to them as they can't hunt every night because of the rain, its proving quite useful in tracking them down on the next dry night after the rain. I've come to the conclusion that in the 5.7 miles between my house and the cricket pitch at St Mary Bourne I have seen 4 different pairs. All hunting miles apart in a very short time, the most obvious pair in SMB were seen entering there nest box with voles at quite a frequent rate.

So now I've seen and vaguely have some idea of there patterns - nights after rain they are usually out hunting the water meadows from 7.15pm onwards. Getting in a good spot for photography is the next challenge. The first 3 images below were not well planned, a quick ditch of the car on the side of the road and me stood leaning against it as the Owl flew no more than 30 yards away, quite a magic encounter with the sun still shining.

The rest of the images did however have some kind of planning as to the location, thinking 6.45pm was early enough to get set up in position, I didn't expect the Barn Owl to come flying out of the tree next to me as I looked to enter the meadow. Luckily he/she wasn't bothered to much and settled on a fence post  just out of sight. So I had to relocate on the wrong side of the sun and stood dead still on the River Bank as I had a very special hour or so watching this silent predator glide over the tops of the grass.

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