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Monday, 19 August 2019

AN UPDATE ON OUR BARN OWLS AND AN OSPREY DUTY.



I am spending most evenings out in my hide monitoring the boxes to see what is happening and that the male is providing sufficient  food for the brood, he at the moment appears to be a very efficient hunter and returns on a regular basis and deposits the spoils of his efforts in the box with the young and female.

I also have the cameras on in the box every two days to try to keep up to date with the hatching, having had the camera on this morning {15th August}. I could only see one egg still to hatch but as to how many Owlets we have, I'm not sure at all. The last time I had an accurate count we had five hatched but this time the female would not get out of the way sufficiently for me to see, she will have to try harder for me. 

I am finding the male is actually coming out of the box earlier but only because the nights are getting darker earlier.





Images taken from the cameras in the small box.

Firstly apologies for the poor quality of the images, we are sill getting a considerable amount of interference but better to see something. 






Awful image but five Owlets are in this shot. what a rate of growth. I was watching whilst the female was feeding the young and the size of the pieces they were swallowing was astounding, comparing them to the Osprey and the female, she was feeding very small bits of fish at this size.




Male Barn Owl leaving the box.

All these images are taken at ISO 102,400 and as the days went by I increased the amount of negative EV up to - 2 for the last images, for my next attempt if it ever stops raining I am going to try -3.
Other than the last two images, all the images were taken on different nights.













ANOTHER OSPREY DUTY, 8th AUGUST.


Its getting to that time of year where the juvenile Ospreys could leave at any time, sad but also satisfying in the fact the adults have managed to rear all four of the young.

I was an duty with a new lady, Julie who was extremely efficient and very knowledgeable on the birds so we had a really good but very busy afternoon with visitors arriving continuously.

The birds were more active than the last duty when it was so hot but even so we did not have much flying about, but the visitors appeared happy enough just to see the birds.  





Adult Female, Waderscrape Hide.

She had been sitting in the poplars farther along the bay, opposite the new Shallow Water hides.




Juveniles in Poplar Tree.

This pair sat in the tree most of the afternoon with 054 {F} to the left and 056 {M} to the right.




Adult Female lands on the nest with 057.

057 had been on the nest for a while, it makes so easy with the large screen in the hide to read the ring numbers.




She then flew onto the camera post leaving 057 picking up the scraps of fish.






Then we had the arrival of two intruder Ospreys, this was on the edge of Manton Bay where it adjoins Heron Bay, a distance of some 580 metres.




33 was immediately into the air from his perch at the other end of the bay and is here bringing up the rear.




The intruders, an adult in the top bird and a juvenile below.









Juvenile intruder on its own.




Juvenile with 33/11 in attendance above.








33 then went into a dive at the youngster but pulled up before hitting the bird.




This was enough for the juvenile who then departed the area and headed for its home nest.




You can just read the ring number 050, not bad for the distance the bird was away from me.








056 to the right and 054 still on the fallen tree, but having changed branches watching 33 remove the intruders.




054 then decides to go and help but also tell 33 its time to catch a fish.
055 was perched in the back of the poplar tree and was impossible to get an image from.




Newly hatched Moorhen, Waderscrape Hide.

This is one of a pair of young that were about in the water to the front of the hide, but either one or the other was always hiding in the reeds.




Second young bird, very late but hopefully will be raised OK by the adults.




Thank you for your visit, I hope you have enjoyed as much as I did in the getting of the images.

Still getting used to the camera.

14 comments:

  1. Hi John, aren't they beautiful. The Osprey shots flying in the air are tremendous.

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  2. Hi Bob,
    They will be even more beautiful in a couple of weeks when we ring them,and then at least I hope for some decent images.
    The new camera does appear to get an enormous amount of detail on long shots as shown of the Ospreys,
    All the best,
    John

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi John!!!.. Excellent work.. So beautiful to see the evolution of the Barn Owl chickens.. Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Ana,
    Thank you, I have had the CCTV cameras on in the box today and we have 6 owlets, which is brilliant. They appear to be growing well so the male is supplying sufficient food.
    All the best,
    John

    ReplyDelete
  5. Fabulous to see the owl chicks. Beautiful bird shots all of them. Thanks John!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Denise,
      The six young owls are coming along well and hopefully in about two weeks we will have them out to ring them and then we can hopefully get some decent images.
      Likewise with the Ospreys, they will soon be away to Africa.
      All the best,
      John

      Delete
  6. Hello John, great that the Barn Owls are doing so well. Also here on the continent lots of food for them so lots of Owls. Glad to see the Ospreys are doing so great and are still around. Not long now like you say. But it was a fantastic Osprey year with the four juvenile birds. Hope to hear from them in the coming years when they will return for having their own nests.
    Regards,
    Roos

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Roos,
      It is as you say so wonderful to have the Owlets doing so well, the male is obviously a good hunter and we must have plenty of food about for him.
      The Ospreys have had the best year ever with ten pairs, but the season is drawing to a close which is always sad, but it is always so goo to see one of the Manton bay young return and invariably land on the nest without the adults chasing it away.
      All the best,
      John

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  7. Hello John,
    There are a lot of babies! It's magic, well done, you can be proud!
    The scenes with ospreys are interesting.
    My favorite picture is the Newly hatched Moorhen hi hi hi, very cute !!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Nathalie,
    Yes we have six Owlets that will all grow to maturity, not bad for in our garden, we have had Barn Owls on our land since 2001 and we are extremely proud.
    The Ospreys have done well this year and the first of the young has gone on its long journey to Africa, a female 054 so all the best to her and her long journey.
    Always find young Moorhen such a delight to watch, they seem to float so very high in the water.
    All the best,
    John

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  9. It is wonderful work you are doing with these Barn Owls, John. You are a conservation hero. I am very happy to hear that the male is a good provider - as I hope I have always been! May the owlets grow up to be strong and robust adults and have a long, productive life with many young of their own. All the very best, David

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi David,
      Thank you for the compliment, we really enjoy what we are and have done with the Barn Owls.
      I had to save one of the Owlets on Sunday evening, it having been so warm over in England I decided to put the cameras on in the evening and as I walked over tot he box I saw something white on the floor, my heart dropped through the floor, an Owlet.
      I gave it a quick check over as it had fallen so far but nothing was broken and so with the help from another Schedule 1 licence holder we returned it to its mum who whilst we up the ladder was hissing at us continuously.
      Have done a post on this.
      All the best,
      John

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  10. Hello John
    in the photos it is indeed easy to see how many young owls are in the cupboard or how many eggs have already hatched. Great that you keep an eye on the brood. In your post here I already saw one of the boy who had fallen out of the closet.
    The male is again very nicely visible before the opening.

    A pity indeed that the osprey are leaving again. So time goes fast! It is also great that they have raised 4 youngsters and they are now going to live their own lives :-)
    Beautiful photos and especially the flight images are great to see. Class!

    The small moorhen is again a nice ending ;-)

    Think carefully about yourself.
    Greetings, Helma

    Dear greetings, Helma

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi Helma,
    I really get involved with the Barn Owls, we are so short of them over here, I am going out in my hide in the next few minutes to try for some more images as the adults go hunting.
    Yes it's that time again with the Osprey leaving, in my next post I will give an update on numbers.
    I was so very pleased with the flight images as the birds were so far away and to be able to read the ring numbers was amazing.
    You look after yourself.
    All the best,
    John

    ReplyDelete

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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