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Monday 10 November 2014

A DOUBLE VISIT AND GETTING CLOSER.

This week I managed two visits out, one as a singleton and one with Richard. The first being on Tuesday when I visited Rutland Water. I drove straight to Rutland on the basis I would owl on my return trip.

On arriving at Rutland Water I went straight into the Egleton Centre and was greeted with "early on the Great White Egret flew of to Lagoon Two and then returned, you should have been here ten minutes ago, the Great White Egret was just in front of us, then it moved out to the island" to which I replied, "everybody else has had the Ospreys in the dead tree in front of the Waderscrape Hide except us". However this had cut the distance down to about 250 metres, a great improvement on previous, however the light was not good but the images are acceptable.

I then moved on to Lagoon three but not much was about, Lagoon Four has had more water pumped in and is too deep for the waders {to try and kill back some vegetation} so left and tried all the hides on the way back but only got an image of a Heron.

So I set off on my return trip and saw two little owls, one at Site 9 sitting in the nest hole and one at Site 5 sitting in the hedge on the far side of the field, but by then the light had gone so wait until Thursday with Richard.

However on Thursday we had a very windy and dull day but we still went out and managed to see two Little Owls, the first at Site 9 but this was well back in the nest hole to keep out of the wind and the second was at Site 12 on the Barn Roof with its back towards us.

We visited all our normal sites and even looked at a new site where we had been told some birds had been seen but finished up going home early as we could see no point in stopping out as no self respecting Little Owl would be venturing out.



Great White Egret.
Rutland Water, Lagoon 1.


The bird was a lot closer than previous but the light was not good, however the image is not that bad. 



Whilst I watched it only moved it head. 



Then a Heron dropped in to visit. 


A quick preen. 



On my return to the Egleton Centre after visiting some other Lagoons, the G.W.E. had gone to the far side of the lagoon some 490 metres away.


Rutland Water, Lagoon 3.

Redshank feeding but a fair distance away.


This one was farther way. 




Little Owl Site No. 9.

This image taken on the 4th November. Even though it was getting dark, not turned out bad.


Little Owl Site No. 12.

Image taken on the 6th November.


Rutland Water Lagoon No. 2.

I always think Heron have a prehistoric look about them. You will probably get the impression I am somewhat fond of the Heron.


Barn Owl Box No. 7.

Erected at Pete and Susies, Bridge Farm.
Lets hope this is successful in attracting a pair of Barn Owls.

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About Me;


Titus White:
Hi I am Richard Peglers friend Titus White, and those who follow Richards posts will understand the name and reason for it. I have been birding with Richard for 3 years and a volunteer at Rutland Water on the Osprey Project for 2 years. My early images were taken on a Nikon D80 with a 70 - 200mm lens. I updated the lens to a 70 - 300mm VR lens but still was not happy with the results. Eventually when Nikon announced the D7100 I decided to change so upgraded the camera and also invested in a Sigma 50 - 500mm lens.
I first met Richard through Arthur Costello as I was having the occasional visit from Little Owls on our land. We eventually found the Little Owls through another contact about 100 metres away. Photo's will follow on future posts.
I have recently upgraded my camera to full frame, this is a challenge I am at the moment enjoying trying to get the best out of the beast.
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