... and yet More Owls!

Monday 16th January 2012

Again, a beautiful sunny day, so I decided to take another stroll across Papercourt Meadows, this time restricting it to the late afternoon. When I arrived there just before 3pm, two Short-Eared Owls were already searching and swooping at the far end of the field, and it wasn't long before they were joined by a Barn Owl.

A Barn Owl searches the meadows.

He sees something on the ground, and stoops!

False alarm! Continue the search.

At one point, a Short-eared Owl and the Barn Owl were both so intent on watching the ground that they came very close to colliding. They both took evasive action at the last moment, then had a little mid-air scrap before resuming their searches. During the incident, the Barn Owl nicked an electricity cable with his wing and started falling, but fortunately he quickly recovered. 

A Short-Eared Owl and a Barn Owl come close to an accidental collision ...

... and there is a bit of a mid-air scrap before they resume their search patterns.

The Short-Eared Owls seem to keep low when searching.

There was a bit of a diversion when a Kestrel appeared, being chased by two Crows. The Kestrel is pretty agile in flight, and this one was making plenty of quick evasive turns, but the Crows are surprisingly agile too, and kept right on his tail. Eventually however, the Crows gave up and let the Kestrel be on his way.

The Kestrel swerves into a sudden dive, but the Crow stays right on his tail!

And finally, a couple of shots taken yesterday and sent to me by Dom (http://www.flickr.com/photos/domgreves/), in which he was unfortunate enough to get me almost in line with the owl. I appear to be photographing something further to the left.