Hunting Barnies

This week I turned my attention from short eared owls to looking for barn owls. The cold weather was still with us but Lancashire had escaped the worst of it and was only having hard overnight frosts. The local short eared owls had recently had a lot of attention from photographers and I left them in peace to go and look for some barn owls. On one visit I had only brief views but this week Martin and I visited the Pilling area and found a pair of barn owls actively hunting.

We were later joined by Dave Cookson and we were treated to a few hunting sorties by this pair of owls. The local farmer had been cutting some of the rough grasses and this may have disturbed the voles which the owls were hunting.The owls performed for us for a short period as the light was beginning to fade on this winter's afternoon. We made the best of the opportunity and I have shown above some of my better efforts to capture the action.

One of the owls caught a vole close by but was facing away from us and the shots above all show the rear end of the barn owl as it departed for it's home in the nearby farm buildings. I hope the images convey some of the excitement when witnessing hunting barn owls. I will of course be returning soon to try and capture more action with hopefully better results.Thanks for looking in.