Whos keeping an eye on me....

Monday 22 April 2013

Short Eared Owl

I spent an hour on Sunday afternoon on the moorlands looking for Wheatear and Ring Ouzel, I quickly found Wheatear.. a few on show with probably plenty more out of sight.

 
 
 
As the weather closed in I decided to call it a day. While walking back to the car, overhead a Gull attacked something in the distance, it took me a few moments to locate it and bingo....
 
Short Eared Owl
 
 
very early afternoon seemed too early for it to be out hunting.
Maybe it had only just arrived back on territory?
 
Soon it was up in the air and flying towards me...
 
 

 

then it was joined by another two and they spent a few minutes displaying to each other
 


 
 
before landing for just a few seconds 

 

and then off out of sight
 
 
A bright sight on a rainy afternoon!

9 comments:

Mary Howell Cromer said...

These Short Earred Owl images are wonderful!!!

Sallie (FullTime-Life) said...

Incredible to get such good owl pictures...maybe the rainy gray day confused him into thinking it was later. That definitely made a gray day worth it. Wow thanks for sharing.

mick said...

What an amazing sighting of the owls and great photos too. I really like the header photo. Beautiful snowy scene.

Arija said...

Fantastic to see these owl shots. So lucky you were there at the right time and reacted so quickly.

Anonymous said...

Really great photos, Dave, the Wheatear is such a pretty bird.

Unknown said...

The owls are fabulous.

eileeninmd said...

Wow, you have some awesome shots of the owl. I love the owls! Well done!

Stewart M said...

Wonderful birds! I used to work on a reserve in (of all places!) Gateshead that had SE owls in the winter - it was never a cold day if you got a good look at the owls.

I often wonder what would have happened to the names of the wrens if they had found more species! Would there be swear words in their names!!!

Cheers and thanks for linking to WBW

Stewart M - Melbourne

i stora drag said...

Amazing series of the owls! Yes, there you were really lucky to see those!
Thanks for your comment! /Pia