What a cutie!

How dull was it today - not a ray of sunlight to be seen all day :(
My husband and I headed off to Formby this morning in search of red squirrels. The reserve is NT and only around half an hour from home.
Despite it being remarkably quiet from a people perspective, the squirrels were actually very shy today. We only saw five or six, and they were not interested in the nuts I'd brought with me at all. So we headed over the dunes to the beach, seeing a field with a handful of pheasant, and a few rabbits, but they were just too far away for a good shot. After a stroll along the beach which was actually quite dull..... we went for a pub lunch to cheer ourselves up after a disappointing morning.

After lunch on the way home, we went to a place called Lunt Meadows. I'd seen this place on FB with some wonderful pictures of short eared owls and barn owls. I've never seen an owl in the wild, so was quite excited by the prospect of maybe being able to see one or two!
It's a rather new reserve and wetlands with a number of ponds, a canal, a river and a pump house, which is where the barn owl is nesting apparently. We walked around for over two hours, seeing a few kestrels in the distance, some ducks and geese and plenty of woodland birds like tits, finches and woodpeckers, but no owls :(

Another disappointment......it just wasn't our day. A local bird watcher showed us the area where the owls are often seen and told us that he'd seen owls the past 5 or 6 visits and that we were really very unlucky.
Of course this did not make us feel better, but knowing that they are around fairly regularly means that I can try again another day over the next two weeks whilst I am not travelling. One day.....