Owl Time

This is the time of year around Christmastime when my thoughts turn to going to look for owls. So it was this week when I made three trips to see if I could find and photograph these evocative and spectacular birds. I visited areas of Lancashire where I had excellent sightings in previous years, notably two years ago in the Pilling area when there was an  " invasion " of short eared owls. Sadly this year this doesn't appear to be the case and during this week I have failed to find any shorties. Whether this is down to lack of prey or whether the SEO had a poor breeding season I don't know.
It is a different story however with the Barn Owl which is resident in parts of Lancashire and can usually be relied on at this time of the year to be found hunting over it's favoured areas of rough grassland. So it proved this week when I visited three sites ,two on the Lancashire Mosslands and one on the moorland of The Forest Of Bowland. The barn owl does tend to appear mid afternoon onwards hunting it's territory and the light then can be good for photography. One afternoon gave some lovely views of a barn owl hunting in the warm glow of a setting sun and enabled me to obtain some nice images with which I was well pleased.
I have posted a few images of one of the mossland barn owls in this lovely light and I hope my readers enjoy them as much as I did in observing and photographing this lovely bird. I will probably do another post before Christmas to show some more including the Bowland bird returning to it's hillside barn with a vole.