Long-eared Owls from Lancashire

Today was my first visit to what has become a well-known location for Long-eared Owls, with people coming far and wide to see them here.  There's also been a lot of bad feeling about photographing them and some disagreements have even turned violent.  This has kept me away from the site which I've known about for around 10 years,  I don't like crowds and particularly crowds of photographers, so I'd rather stay away than get embroiled in all the fuss.

However, knowing that the owlets had fledged (you can't keep anything secret for long nowadays), I decided an early midweek opportunity in decent weather should be missed. I needed something to kickstart my flailing birding mojo and I wasn't disappointed.

Long-eared Owls are mainly nocturnal hunters and like to stay buried deeply in vegetation making them normally very difficult to find and see during the day. That is, unless it's the breeding season, when they hunt during the day to feed hungry mouths.  They are very prone to disturbance and will often leave an area if ti becomes too much. That said, these owls have been here a long time, and so whatever has occurred in the past, it hasn't caused them to move.

As the breeding season was largely over, I decided this was the time to go.  As can be seen from the above photo, the owlets have fledged and are almost full size although they still retain their brown faces and some downy feathers.

I've only had one good view of a Long-eared Owl before with most of my previous sightings being partial and distant.  Frequently it's only an eye or ear on show, with most of the bird being covered by vegetation, so to see them out in the open here is a real treat.

I did see one bird fly a couple of times but didn't manage to get a decent flight shot. So I may go back once more this year but now I know where it is I'll definitely be going again next year.