Little Owl

Little Owl, Athene noctua

Now we are moving in to the "other" three owls found in Britain. First up the little owl, now one of our most common owls, but an introduced bird.

It seems strange to me that people are often anti introduced animals in this country, even the non-invasive ones if they have not come over on their own accord, but there is an enormous amount of support for the little owl! They are reducing in numbers, but people are putting in good efforts to conserve these owls.

I for one are very pleased... I feel like they have found there own little niche in our country, and do very little disturbance to anything else. They are such characterful birds too that to not have them in our British countryside would be a crying shame.

Above is one of our older males Robin.

Scrappy

Our younger little owl, and the one we use for photographic days, is Scrappy. the rest of the photos will be of him. Above he is on an old bit of wood, with a farmers field of sheep as a backdrop.

Little Owl on the Ground

One of the most natural places for them to be spotted is on the ground, looking for worms and beetles. Usually it would be a bit more earthy, but the grass above with the side light provided a lot of nice colour.

Little Owl in Stone Wall

Scrappy in a wall. Another natural habitat for them, and one of our perches for the owl photographic days. The wall is great... every one walks up to it with a "what the..." look on their face, but afterwards go away happy and surprised with the photos they have taken.

I'll do a post on the wall at some point in the future.

Little Owl at Sunset

This is one a few I took one evening last year. It was a back-lit session, but I took this one above front lit to catch the reflection of the sun-set in his eye. I don't know if it will be visible on here, but you can see the red sun on the horizon reflected in his right eye!

Little Owl

One of my favourite photos of Scrappy. Quite often I pull back to give the animal room to breath, and sometimes like to see lots of space. This is good for Liza in the office too as it gives her blank space to put writing on.

Scrappy with Tom

One of Tom with Scrappy on a photo day.

Scrappy Tickles

And I just had to finish with one of Scrappy getting tickles... He loves them, honestly he does! Strange owl.

Thanks for looking.