AN HOUR WITH THE SHORT EARED OWLS.

After a busy few days with involvement at Crufts with Discover Dogs, this unfortunately meaning that the weekly trip out with Richard and visit to my farmer friends was not possible, I eventually managed to get away from home for some birding on Friday 11th of March. As I was not over flush with time I had a quick visit to Cossington Meadows as four Short Eared Owls had been seen on Thursday afternoon so I set off full of anticipation which usually means a fall and disappointment. On arrival down the site, { which by the way had been badly flooded on the other side of the track to Swan Meadow the previous day and in one place some of the track had been eroded away by the water } I met up with several of my normal companions and was told no birds had been seen, but at 15.50 hrs the first bird was seen followed a second bird. After about another twenty minutes a third bird arrived so were we going for a fourth, not really sure as the three were all over the place, one would go out of site towards the top of Swan Meadow and a few seconds later a bird would appear from the bottom of Swan Meadow, had it just turned at the top and flew down the field behind us and then appeared form the bottom of the field, not really sure so I will say we saw three but they certainly gave us a good show.

I appreciate that last week I apologised for adding more Shortie Images but I enjoy watching these birds, they are very graceful in flight and I am sure will soon be flying North. It has been four years since Short Eared Owls have been at Cossington Meadows so I am allowed to spoil myself a little until they go, they have certainly helped the Winter go by.

Dartmoor Ponies.

These have been at Cossington Meadows for a couple of years and appear to have settled in well. They help to keep the grass down on the Swan Meadow side of the track and have free range over all the fields on that side of the track. This area appears to be above flood level. 

The Shorties fly about the ponies and neither appear bothered. 

Palest of the three birds.

One of the Darker birds at the bottom of Swan Meadow, long distance shot. 

 The second Darker bird.

Second dark bird 

One of the darker birds flying between the ponies. 

Darker bird a little closer. 

 Pale bird landed on a post about sixty metres away and was having a good shake when I took this shot, hence the feathers fluffed out.

Pale bird farther across the Meadow. 

Again the pale bird, this did show the most of the three.

This bird flying reasonably low and you can see the blurred grass in front of the bird, luckily the camera focused on the bird, not the grass. 

If only we could read the birds mind, "which one shall I land on and scare the living daylights out of". 

At last I managed an image showing the two little tufts of feathers above the eyes. {short ears}. This appears to be one of the darker birds.
Still not sure as to us seeing three or four birds. 



Thank you for your visit.

I hope you have enjoyed these images as much as I did in the getting. If you leave a comment I will reply to them all. Unfortunately last week I had a problem with the programme which ended up with people sending comments, these appearing as emails but not appearing as comments on the Blog, I apologise to these people.