Reply With QuoteWhen I saw the title of this thread, I thought it was a new sport devised to get around gathering in groups restrictions!
Never seen an owl in daylight in the wild.
https://youtu.be/zBNYOQV_HXQ
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Never tire watching these amazing Birds
Last edited by mav112; 5th January 2021 at 12:16.
When I saw the title of this thread, I thought it was a new sport devised to get around gathering in groups restrictions!
Never seen an owl in daylight in the wild.
I live near a ravine and have only seen two. One on my roof when I came home one nigh. Second. A small white one about 6" on my railing when I looked out my window one winter.
Tried to open the door to get a picture, but it flew off. Not a sound of it's wings
See a number of hawks though
DON
Amazing birds and they used to be a regular sighting near my home in Suffolk.
I have relocated since and haven't seen one for years now, albeit we do have a lot of Tawnys around here, which is lovely to hear - if a bit elusive to actually see.
Cycling home the other night down a dark country lane. All of a sudden I saw one perched on metal gate. He took off just as I passed him and had the pleasure of him flying alongside me for a few metres.
My wife gave me a trail camera for Christmas. I set it up near to a nesting box a friend of mine had built. Managed to get a picture of the resident:
The only other thing I have caught with it so far is this bugger. But I digress. :)
We are fortunate to have Carlton Marsh on our doorstep which is a Suffolk Wildlife Trust Nature Reserve.
With lockdown in the spring we were walking the marsh every evening watching the adults hunting and feeding their young. I lost count how many times we said how lucky and privileged we were to watch the spectacle and hear the young.
Pitch
We have a couple of barn owls who we see most nights, they come flying down our field closest to the house, down the side of the house, and then bugger about in the field over the road, I love watching them,
I’ve plagued the forum with owl photographs over the years, don’t get me started! They’re still my favourite wildlife subject by far, amazing birds.
Little Owl by iaintookey, on Flickr
Those deserve a round of applause Tooks.
Bloody difficult birds to photograph. Not only are they shy, they don't tend to come out to play until the light is far to low for a telephoto lens to capture a moving bird.
What a brilliant picture. Little Owls are my favourites.Originally Posted by Tooks
I’ve plagued the forum with owl photographs over the years, don’t get me started! They’re still my favourite wildlife subject by far, amazing birds.
They are showing through the day at the moment on my local patch must be the cold weather
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The farm my parents live on has several types of owl but the barn owls are my favourite, just watching them out at dusk hunting is magical.
My regular dog walk has suffered from some massive forestry works over the last two years or so, but what it has done is open up the view in to the water meadow and I often see a pair of barn owls out hunting there is also a well positioned fallen tree that I often sit on and watch the barn owls.
We’re extremely privileged to have a pair very close to us.
Local owl group installed a box for them about a year ago and they managed to raise one female owlet last July.
I had a trail cam set up and have hundreds of photos of them.
Also helped ring the new youngster which was an absolute treat.
I’m hoping for a better brood this coming season.
But brood size is very cyclical and seems to crash every seven or eight years.
Coincides with vole crashes, unsurprisingly.
Contrary to common belief they are not solely nocturnal.
I’ve seen them hunting at all hours of daylight in our back fields.
Really a treat to watch.
We’ve got little owls and Tawny’s about too.
The little owls like calling from our roof ridge.
My in laws have one that lives in a tree in their garden, he is often sitting on the gate as you drive up in the evening. I had no idea their habitat extended as far as Southern Africa but apparently they are one of the most wide spread birds. Their garden is a haven for Wild life and there is nothing better than sitting with a beer watching the comings and going’s at dusk.
As an adage to this thread,
We checked our box early June to find six owlets in it !
The owl man is coming tomorrow evening to ring them.
The weather has been good until yesterday, so they should be ok.
Barn owls and rain don’t mix.
So they can fly silently, a barn owls feathers are not waterproof.
If they get too wet they can quickly become waterlogged and cannot fly at all.
A period of only two or three days steady rain that stops hunting is enough to starve youngsters and even adults in prolonged wet weather.
Last year, we only had one youngster in our box. The weather was quite poor and the field voles that are a main prey source seem to have cycles of good years and bad years which obviously affects the creatures which prey on them.
As a consequence an owl will lay fewer eggs if conditions are not ideal.
This year has been very good.
Mild winter. Pretty dry spring and summer(so far) so lots of prey and good weather to hunt them in.
When we checked our box at the beginning of June it was a great boost to see six chicks.
There were three about 3-4 weeks old,
Very strong and healthy,
1 about 2 weeks,
1 about 10 days
and 1 about a week old.
The female will lay a clutch of eggs first ( in our case 3)
And if weather and availability of food remains good will lay further eggs at intervals.
Hence the difference in ages.
The most surprising thing is that our female is only 12 months old herself.
We had assumed it was the same female as last year but when we checked the number on her leg ring, we realised that she had been ringed at the end of July last year as a 50 day old chick about 4 miles away.
Barn owls pair for life
(3-5years lifespan in the wild)
So our female from last year must have died or been killed.
For a first year female to raise 6 owlets is unusual and a fantastic boost to the population.
I’m hoping that tomorrow they’re all still alive
Female at the back.
Slightly larger and much darker plumage.
The male is drying the underside of wings off there in the through draught from the opposite window. When landing on prey in long wet grass, wings and face get pretty sodden
Last edited by John Wall; 26th June 2021 at 20:12.
Fantastic to see, thanks! I often hear the hoot of an owl late at night while I'm lying in bed, or sometimes coming home in the darkness on a long bike ride near the woods two miles away.
It’s Tawny owls that hoot or “twit-twoo”
Barn owls make an eerie screech noise
And it’s one owl that twits and another that twoos
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Beat me to it Shaun,
I was away trying to work out how to post a video of the different calls.
Well, the Barn Owl man has been.
We have 5 very healthy owlets.
Only lost one of the brood,
which is fantastic for a first year female.
Ringed, weighed and measured.
3 females and two males.
Let’s hope they get thru their first winter (70% don’t)
and raise young themselves next year.
Last edited by John Wall; 27th June 2021 at 21:42.
Lovely to see. I regularly saw an owl in Greece a couple of years ago- I don't know what type though.
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That’s a Little Owl
Last edited by John Wall; 28th June 2021 at 21:25.
Barn Owl by robb d, on Flickr
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they havent been seen over Winter on my Local patch but Looks like they are back now
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Barn owl by robb d, on Flickr
Last edited by mav112; 10th July 2021 at 11:02.
I knew you'd make an appearance!! Rightly so, amazing captures! I was showing someone some of your shots only the other day.I’ve plagued the forum with owl photographs over the years, don’t get me started! They’re still my favourite wildlife subject by far, amazing birds.
Do you still get up to the Mac loop for fast jet pictures?
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Just wanted to say thanks for this post and congratulate both Iain and Robb on their fantastic images.
I have a couple of Tawny owls nesting somewhere near my house. I can hear them clearly in the late evening and early morning but I've yet to see them. Shame as think they're such majestic creatures.
Cheers,
Gary
An utterly beguiling thread with some wonderful photos, being close to many farms, fields and woodlands we hear them regularly, catching a glimpse is a little harder.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
Great photos! I like them, but they didn't like me once. I was investigating a burglary which involved squeezing down a narrow wall and fence, shone my torch up and suddenly this owl swooped down and hit my head. I must have startled it when the torch beam glinted off my cap badge. Bit of a surprise to say the least! 😳
Inspired by this thread, I have just contacted our local barn owl group to see if our own fields/trees are suitable for some owl boxes, so they are dropping in soon to assess if we are suitable.
Hopefully we will get the thumbs up and we can do our own little bit to help.
ah thats cool, yeah the things are silent. I've seen a few displays at the british wildlife centre in Lingfield, they can fly right past your head and you dont hear a thing, just a rush of air a few seconds after they have passed by.
Beautiful angels of death!
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that would be good let us know what they say
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Sorry mate, only just seen this!
I tend to go to the Lake District now for low level aircraft photography, the Loop whilst still probably the busiest location is hit and miss these days.
You tend to get the opportunity to photograph jets in unfamiliar backgrounds in the Lakes, although even more hot and miss. Windermere into Thirlmere and through Dunmail is regularly flown through, and you can get them down Ullswater as well.
The Lakes is a better place to be if the aircraft are not active too, and there’s a lot of military rotary traffic at the moment.
The barn owl preservation trust people have just spent the last couple of hours wandering around our fields and assessing what food sources exist to sustain a breeding pair of barn owls. It was very interesting to wander around and hear what type of meadow makes good forage for owls and what needs to be present to entice them in and sustain them. And how many voles they need to catch to feed their young over a breeding season!
Despite our fields being pretty wild, lightly grazed meadows, they do not currently have the correct clumps of grass required for adequate vole numbers at this stage. All is not lost though, as our woods are perfect for tawny owls and the vole population we do have can be increased with a few small tweaks to our field management (which we will now put in place - ie just stop harrowing the fields). So simple and so easy to do, but only obvious when someone more knowledgeable than us has pointed out the feeding methods of voles and what to look for.
So the plan is to add some tawny boxes in our wooded areas for now and then let the vole numbers increase as they spread over larger areas of our fields over the next 4 years(!) and we should be in a better place for the barn owls too. At that stage we will add some barn owl boxes too.
thanks that's interesting to know hope you succeed
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