Up and away

I was pretty sure that it was going to be too windy for owls today, so I went churchyard birding first, just to make sure that I wasn't under the kind of photo-less pressure I experienced last Friday afternoon. Robins, Coal Tits and Nuthatches secured, I made my way up onto the scarp, expecting the owl field to be quiet because of the wind, only to discover that it was heaving with togs and every reasonable parking space on the lane was already taken. So I parked (bad-temperedly, but carefully) in an unreasonable one, and stomped off down to the crossroads. 

There I met Sheol, who'd been at the site for some time already, and told me that there had been one Short-eared Owl up for a while, but that it had killed and had immediately settled into the grass to eat its meal - a sensible strategy, I'd say, given how many voles these owls lose to other birds. Sheol reckoned that it probably wouldn't be flying again for a while, and as he'd already got photos and had other stuff to do, he left quite soon afterwards. I love the Dipper that he's posted this evening - a super image of a bird of which I've never yet managed to capture a single shot worth keeping.

My first owl of the day (and as far as I can see the only one of which I have photos, though I counted three flying) didn't come out until about an hour after my arrival - by which time the paparazzi were getting restless, and local drivers who were having to negotiate the parked cars, people and tripods along the narrow main road were becoming increasingly irritable. For a while I shot from the corner of the main field by the crossroads, but I wasn't feeling much love for the project: there were too many other photographers around me, and the owl kept cutting out the corner (as I would have done myself), and not getting near enough for detailed photos. I noticed that every time it veered away it seemed to fly towards the same section of wall, a hundred metres or so further along the road, so after about half an hour I walked down there, expecting it to be jammed with cars and people, only to discover that it was totally deserted. 

I stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, standing quite close to a little thorn bush so that it wasn't just my silhouette that broke the skyline, and though I very much doubt that the Shortie was fooled by this minimalist disguise, it also quite clearly wasn't bothered, because it continued with the same circuit it had been flying before, and came in towards me several times. This image was taken after one of those approaches, when the owl had turned to its right, and my left, back towards the lane, and had made an unsuccessful dive into the grass. Although they're really very slight birds, it takes a lot of effort from those broad wings to get them back up and into the air, and it can be several seconds before they're moving forwards again on a steady course, and ready to tuck their legs and feet away neatly and aerodynamically beneath them.