Close encounters of the natural kind.

It's been a while since I've felt I had anything to update my blog with as this Summer has been a bit of a damp squib round these parts. Interesting nature walks have been few and far between, unfortunately. However I have recently had one or two lucky encounters with barn and tawny owls, a fox, hare, stoat and a beautiful but menacing sparrowhawk which has been stalking my bird table.
Apologies in advance for the poor photo quality. These were taken either through windows (dirty ones!), from long distances and/or in the failing light of evening. A more professional photographer would have captured clearer images I'm sure; I'm not going to worry about that though!
 

I came across the hare whilst crossing a field on a little used footpath. It was my first sighting of a wild hare and I watched him grazing for some time before he suddenly seemed startled and headed for a nearby wooded area. The unmistakable loping gait confirmed he was indeed a hare and not a rabbit.

I didn't manage to get photos of the Fox, as it was a very brief encounter and too dark for my camera to handle.  



Nor did I manage to photograph the Tawnies which have been calling to each other every evening around the area where I live. I first heard them when I was putting food out for my nightly hedgehog visitors. Turning around to come back into the house I was very surprised to see two of them, sitting side by side on my television aerial; so exciting! I haven't heard them calling the last couple of evenings as I've had my skylights shut because of the rainy weather. I'm hoping they'll be back though.

I often go out on "owl patrol" on summer evenings, in the hope of spotting my favourite, the Barn Owl. On one such evening I was on my way home with my family after an unsuccessful search and feeling a little disappointed when I spotted one as I was driving past some derelict buildings. After watching for a while we left, but returned a few evenings later to see if we would be in luck again.
Imagine our excitement when we saw not one, but two Barn Owls hunting and bringing prey to what was evidently their nest site.
I must stress here that it is an offence to intentionally or recklessly disturb barn owls at an active nest site with eggs or young or before eggs are laid, or to disturb the dependent young.   Legal status...
With this in mind we positioned ourselves well away from the nest site and waited, binoculars at the ready. Before too long the parent birds came with food for their young. Even at a distance we could hear the unmistakable hissing of the chicks.

Barn Owls prey mainly on Field Voles, Common Shrews and Wood Mice. There was evidently a good supply in the rough grassland and fields in this area, as the parents brought back prey at regular intervals as we were watching.
An adult will eat 3-4 prey items per night, if weather conditions are favourable. Their silent hunting ability is a double edged sword however, as they are unable to store much in the way of fat reserves and their feathers are not waterproof. This means that they can't hunt in rainy weather and that in turn means any young they have don't get any food either. In prolonged rainy spells the older and therefore bigger and more dominant chicks sometimes resort to eating their siblings in order to survive.
Happily though, this appeared to be a successful year for this owl family. We counted four well developed chicks, but there could very easily have been more.

 

 

It's been several weeks since I've seen any sign of the Barn Owls; fingers crossed they all managed to successfully fledge and have dispersed to their new territories. 

I had a completely unexpected but nevertheless delightful encounter with a very inquisitive stoat, which popped up out of the undergrowth right next to me while I was waiting to take some sunset photos one evening. The lovely little creature soon disappeared again, but two minutes later it was back to check me out. I was amazed at how close it came to me, less than two feet away. 

Thanks for visiting my blog. Hope you've enjoyed the photos!