nesting Long-eared Owl

March has passed by in a flash - the few evening visits ive made produced regular flight displays & calling from Long-eareds, nothing particularly out of the ordinary although we have seemingly single unpaired male & female birds at 2 new locations.
The final outcome for what we presume to be 3 new pairs discovered over the winter, waits to be seen....

One local contact is in the enviable position of having a hunting Leo along the edge of their garden almost every evening as the light fades....

Our first incubating females are generally located on their old Crow or Magpie nests during the first few days of April - just before the Hawthorn buds burst, hiding them from view.... or that was the case...
The superb (is that really the right word ? - 'worryingly warm' may be more appropriate..) Spring weather has resulted in the thorns greening up quicker than ever this year, not forgetting our summer visiting birds all piling in early too.

None have been noted "sitting" untill yesterday

A quick check to see how things were progressing revealed only a single egg. They are as we suspected over a week behind their usual schedule - despite the warm weather.

On the approach the male tried his hardest not to be detected


If he was a Red Grouse at this point hed be saying "Go Back, Go Back, Go Back......"

Tremendous contortions as he twists his body, partly in an attempt to present more flank & wing camo patterning and also getting ready to head off.

Scoping from a distance a short while later she had returned & was once again sitting - although still slightly unsettled, lifting her head to look around - obscured digi-scoped image showing facial disc.
Within moments though, she settled down & all that was visible was the top of her head & ear tufts blowing in the breeze.

incubating female Long-eared Owl, old Magpies nest in mature Hawthorn tree

while the watch dog male kept an eye on us at all times

anxious male bird

Both sexes have an amazing repetoir of vocalisations, some of the males alarm calls very dog like.

male beginning to relax as we moved away

After this intusion we left the pair in peace, the male also quickly adopting a far more relaxed & contented profile

"And Dont Come Back !" - we wont for a good few weeks.

images & information from various local sources inc JS,WD, DK, MH, MD, JW, GS, AK et al - many thanks to all.

once upon a time thousands of years ago....

Heres a very long range picture of a local Barn Owl sitting asleep outside the entrance to his roost hole

                                                               here its............................ ^


When we were covered in trees however many thousand years ago, the distribution & abundance of our Barn owls must have been different, surely very limited in range & numbers.....

I remember reading ( & cant find the book, nevermind the paragraph & reference ! ) that Limestone Cliffs & Caves are the birds natural home.
The images taken last summer illustrate just how well the birds blend in with the similarly coloured limestone

We are on the edge of the Durham Magnesium Limestone Plateau here at home, just below the escarpment. This broken ridge has numerous quarries & sand pits, sometimes used by Barn Owls.

Some of these locations are actively being worked for stone, others have been abandoned for decades.

Even in this supposedly enlightened age, some are infilled, being used as rubbish dumps & moto-X bikes, thankfully other have classifications & sometimes nature reserves - more so for their very specialised flowers & plants, rather than birds.

Habitats unique to the Durham Magnesian Limestone Natural Area, magnesian limestone grassland and the coastal denes have a rich variety of wildlife, supporting 13 nationally scarce plants and 84 nationally scarce invertebrates. Magnesian limestone grassland species include Northern Brown Argus, Glow-worm and Dark-red Helleborine. These species, along with the Barn Owl, are all priority species in the Durham Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP).

http://www.durhambiodiversity.org.uk/MMWhy1.htm

In dusk we trust

I thought id this post a link to Paul 'Little Owl Radar'  Riddles blog :-
A Very nice surprise !

A superb encounter like this is why we trust in dusk, rather than dust to get our highs !


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Little Owl - Big Tree

A few local pairs of Little Owls out in the sun yesterday
here a couple digi-binned shots of one pair-

One, presumably the female was sat tight in near a cavity at the top of the stem

& this one below, was a lot more active within the canopy - he wasnt too happy when a Magpie joined them

Long-eared sets his stall out - keep your ears open.

Yesterday evening some display & vocalisitions from a couple of pairs of Leo.

After a short spell of territorial advertisement from the male,
Male Leo 'singing' , unusually it was the female who was first out.

She then called for 2-3 mins before flying to the thorns at the edge of the plantation. Female Long-eared Owl contact calling
She continued calling every 7 or 8seconds for a short while untill a gentle tapping came closer..
 
The tapping became louder as the male came over in his wing-clapping display flight, approx 5m overhead.
Male Long-eared Wing-Clapping
Long-eared Owls by Stevieevans

I watched him continue with exaggerated floating wing-beats, silhouetted against the light polloution to the east.
She continued called regularly for 15 mins while he was out of sight - he then returned, the muffled tapping of his wings clearly audible from some distance in the calm air.

I drew a blank at another site, the third i checked in passing on the way home - hearing both male & female, but seeing nothing.

A meagre offering from late this afternoon :-

I shall follow this up by posting some details of  the non-intrusive methods i have used in Co.Durham during the late winter / early spring period to locate Leo's over the past 2 decades. This systematic method has helped several owlers find Long-eareds on their own local patches- in some cases the species having been their "bogey bird" for decades.

(cant get 2 of those sound files to work..yet)

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Recent series of wet nights resulting in a daylight hunting Barnie at home yestday.
A roadside Tawny just the wrong side of the Met Boro boundary as i drove along the Seaham/Ho'ton road @ 21:30 last night.

5 owls in 2 days - things are picking up.

A cold overcast day, after having been spoilt with yesterdays sun

A wander north round the edge of the City of Sunderland


I saw it first for a change - how folk get so close to these little b~~~~ers is a mystery to me.....

 Little Owl sheltering at the edge of a farmyard


Very fortunate to find this Long-eared sitting rather openly in a semi-mature Ash within a thorn copse

another site i dont get to very often, but hit on lucky

even though hes roosting within the open canopy of an Ash, theres allways twigs & branches in the way

Long-eared Owl pellets - easily identified, as they often seem to regurgitate pound coins ;-)

slightly weathered pellets - showing variability in sizes.


Headed back & got into place to see distant views of Barn Owl in the half light - day light hunting Barnies allways a scarce commodity round here for some strange reason.....

Thats all 5 seen over the last 2 days.

Favourite pair fine, but bit of a Backwoods Shocker later

A mild sunny day saw us walk 30 mins to school, thereafter it was off to check on one of my favoured Long-eared sites over the river near Durham City.
Id had a call to say "an owl" had been "found shot".

This site has recently changed ownership, but the neighbouring farmer put a word in for me ensuring access.
No sign of any dead owls, infact a relief to discover the resident pair relaxing in the warmth of what felt like a spring day - many species now singing including Skylarks, Yellowhammer, Chaffinch & several Willow Tit (a dozen pairs noted today).

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The afternoon saw another discovery - this one slightly more sinister.... a real Backwoods Shocker.

Whats this household waste bin doing burried within this old pit heap....?

Whats these pipe entrances, with 'blocker rocks' leading from the bin.....



 

 

I could smell death all around, but couldnt resist lifting the lid........             empty......

I could still smell something rotten close by,

i turned to see these 2 slung into the undergrowth....

Long dead Dog Fox & recently slaughtered Vixen

A pityful sight of the Vixen

 

Can only assume that someones gone to all this trouble digging in the pipes etc, to create a false earth /  use as a baiting pit - to set dogs onto the foxes....

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Towards the end of the afternoon, a more positive encounter with a Short-eared Owl hunting & heading off north - the last 2 years have been abismal for shorties here - whereas 3 winters back we had in excess of 20 birds.
Todays is my first this winter - obviously a passage bird, along with Skylarks, Shoveller duck, Green Sand & Pied Wagtails that were also reported as moving through the area today -
Is Spring here.... ? not quite yet. 

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The previous day i managed to find a new roost site
no telescope, so these pictures of 'twigs' were all i could manage with my iPhone hand held up to my binoculars ! ;-)

another location to keep track on - 9 out of 10 winter roosts sites in Co.Durham hold Long-eareds year round, so hopefully this will turn out to be an additional breeding location....

We are apparently set for a return to winter conditions, but only a couple of weeks now untill the month of March, when Long-eared territorial activity is a daily occurance.  

Long-eared Owl roost - FEB_2011

images of 5 birds from a Co.Durham Long-eared Owl roost containing 8+ individuals
lowland site on private farmland.

( click to enlarge pics)

Bird 1
#A

#B

#C

#D

#E

Bird 2
#A

#B

Bird 3
#A

Bird 4
#A

Bird 5
#A

#B

#C

These images taken using a mobile phone, hand held through a telescope - with obvious limitations.

Hopefully they help illustrate how the birds can 'gradually appear' whilst the scanning observer changes viewpoint.

Luckily this location suffers no disturbance & therefore 4 of the birds are perched relatively openly, being observed relatively easily.

More often than not, starting by viewing the base of the roost trees can be a productive method to locate roosting otus.

Scoping, even from range, for tell tale signs of splash is a good system.

Working up the trunk, pellets may also be visible lodged in the branch network - as the season progresses, the branches imediately below the roosting bird can become very obviously white washed - this is often the best single indicator to aid locating obscured birds.

Why a species which relies on superb cryptic patterning to remain undetected, should leave such an obvious "calling card" beneath its daytime roost is a mystery......

perhaps those white marks help pinpint roosting branches when returning to the roost before first light ?

Countless hours of fieldwork in County Durham, primarily by a small but dedicated group of "owling specialists", has led to us confirming in excess of 100 breeding pairs of Long-eareds.

This week i obtained first account from a gamekeeper of a 'new' pair in a moorland edge location - there is certainly further scope to discover further breeding pairs..........

Who needs Fieldcraft when we can all be spoon-fed ?

A walk through open mixed farmland

Nothing too much out of the ordinary, a few bushes & old fence posts that have seen better days

But, this is a very likely looking hunting post.
Out of the prevailing breeze, on the sheltered side of a field boundary Holly tree - although at first glance, no clues on show....

Who's been here then..
Viewed from the other side, some limited "white gloss" splash confirms our suspicions & lets us know an owl or raptor has been perched here...

A closer inspection,

the splash on the grass becomes more apparent & reveals 2 pellets  (1 on ground, 1 in the gorse).

confirmation that a Long-eared Owl has been present.

In the evening, Long-eareds regularly hunt from perches like this - i should imagine theyd be glad of a bit shelter when the wind is as wild as it has been -

So we now know otus is present, but finding where its sitting during the day requires a great deal more time, care & commitment.

Tawny family last year

Having finally got the pole mounted box sorted out, ( see http://wearewandering.blogspot.com/2011/01/better-late-than-never.html  )
i remembered a selection of images The Foto Ninja had supplied me with :-

Hopefully these Tawny Owls will leave the Kestrels in peace & allow them sole occupation of the pole box this year.

We have provided the Tawnies with their very own nest box -

whilst this fly's in the face at what is considered best practice for sites with Long-eareds ( ie dont encourage Tawny at Leo sites),

we hope this will help keep the TO's away from both the Kestrel & Barn Owl boxes

Little bit of what you fancy

Temperature up to a balmy 7 degrees - felt like a Spring evening as the light went tonight.

The coveys of Greys, so prominant during 5 weeks of snow, now split into noisy territorial pairs dashing all over.

Little Owl activity building as the afternoon wore in, with much calling from multiple birds at dusk



kissy kissy

  - this culminated in a pair "getting jiggy" on a fence post 

the action shot - possibly the worst owl photo ever....

i suppose this is to do with strengthening the pair bond rather than a breeding attempt......


Here a Little Owl in a local working quarry

LO enjoying the sun on a Limestone face

Evidence beneath a rather open Long-eared Owl roost

Leo pellets beneath recently evacuated roost, boot toe cap for scale.



 

for a pair of orange eyes that were waiting for me

Long-eared eyes

Doesnt show up too well, but this was all i could see of him