It's That Time Again - Owls !

Long-eared Owl - 3.08.2023

It's been some months since my last blog post in the interim I've still managed some activity with trips down to Horn Mill and the big one out to Castill La Mancha in Central Spain. Anyway a short post on the successful not so far away breeding Long-eared Owls.

Every year there are several locations when there is a short time period for a must visit, like the Malham for Peregrines, Dee for Short-eared Owls, even closer fledging Long-eared Owls. I must say it didn't cross my mind to make the LEO trip this year, that’s until all the images started to appear on social media.

The weather over the last few days has been grim, grey and loads of rain, hard to see when there's going to be a period when a trip is going to be worth while. The weather forecast today is rain and cloud, looking out the window...that can't be right as all I'm seeing white clouds and some blue sky...so I'm off on the short drive to see what I can get.

Having been on site for maybe an hour half walking up and down the usual locations with little success when a couple of joggers approach, "are you looking for the owls" ? they give me the heads up..."they've been seen further down the track, we see them regularly"...really !...so back down the track.

Later in the evening the fledgling Long-eared Owls start calling for the adults for food making it a lot easier to locate. Soon there are three owls calling all with a small location, one sat in the open a the base of a small beech tree, with some manoeuvring I’m managing some great photo ops.

Having now spent a couple hours photographing probably UK's most rare breeding owl I have all the images on offer that aren't going to be repeats, time to call time. 

With a really good local encounter under my belt I might try again in a few days hopefully for something different, you never know what might turn up !

Long-eared Owl