Great Horned Owl

1st WARNING - For a limited time only !

2nd WARNING - You may find the following addictive !!

3rd WARNING - You may find yourself suffering from withdrawal symptoms sooner than you would like !!!

I have to thank (or blame!) my good friend, David Gascoigne, for drawing my attention to a web-cam that has held me spellbound all-week.

There is a web-cam that overlooks a Great Horned Owl nest on Skidaway Island, Georgia, USA. You can find its images here. As I write this, the nest contains two owlets which are being looked after by their mother.

Sunday 15th March, 2015

This was my first day of watching the nest, starting in their afternoon. The chicks are fairly lively, and mum puts in an appearance later. The time shown is local time (to the cam) - 4 hours behind UK time.

Monday 16th March, 2015

One of the owls is doing its wing exercises. 

Tuesday 17th March, 2015

Suddenly I find that there is someone working behind the scenes and the camera has amazing zoom capabilities! Until this point in time, all the footage I'd seen had been at the same focal length.

Wednesday 18th March, 2015

I managed to tear myself away from the nest-cam for most of the day. The owlets seemed to be doing just fine. However, by the end of the day, the wind was getting up, and all was looking a little frightening.

Thursday 19th March, 2015

A rather frightening start to the day, with a high wind blowing the tree, and the owlets staying hunkered down or sheltering behind thicker branches. At one point, mum seemed to be mantling one to warm it up. Fortunately the wind died down during the day and the owlets seemed to emerge from the experience with added confidence and a sense of adventure. It was apparent that one would be off the nest platform at any time

Friday 20th May, 2015

When I first looked at the web-cam only one owlet was visible, and that was at the very edge of the nest platform, looking up along a branch. I didn't do any screen grabs of this episode as they took place during the hours of darkness and not much was visible. It seems that one of the owlets was 'branching' - something that they do at about six weeks old. A period of around a week, during which they explore the branches around the nest platform (sometimes ending up on the ground), is (with luck) followed by fledging. It seems, therefore, that these owlets will soon be fledged.

Next time I looked, both owlets were back on the nest. The backroom boys were putting the camera through its paces again.

From my observations of the web-cam, the mother owl appears to be away from the nest for most of the time during the week, but it seems she is not far away as you can see here in this view from the ground.

Remember, this could all end at any time! I suggest you get watching the nest-cam as soon as possible!

Eurasian Eagle Owl - by Noushka

Noushka has been out with the owls again - and this time she's been photographing a Eurasian Eagle Owl. Her efforts have produced absolutely stunning results, as you will find here.

Here's a taster of what is in store for you!

Eurasian Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo) - by Noushka

Congratulations, Noushka, on some of the most inspiring owl images that it's been my pleasure and privilege to enjoy!

More From Noushka

Noushka has been out with the owls again, and she's come up with more splendid Short-eared Owl images. you can find them here. Here's a taster.

OBN Welcomes New Member, Andrew Duncalf

Andrew Duncalf recently introduced himself to me. He is fairly dedicated to owls (to put it mildly), and has an extremely interesting blog entitled Mid Cheshire Barn Owls. Please take a look by clicking on the link - I'm sure you will return after you do! In the meantime, here is one of Andrew's images to be going on with.

 

More From Noushka

Noushka has recently returned from Spain, and has put a post on her blog with some superb images from a Little Owl encounter. Please take a look via this link. Here is a taster!

Photographer and Artist of Note - Noushka

For some time now I've been admiring the photography and artistic skills of Noushka (at Noushka's request, I have removed her surname), currently living in south-west France.  Noushka's wildlife photography (mainly of birds) is stunning. It has an illustrative quality about it, showing an amazing level of detail - just look and you'll understand what I mean!

It seemed, therefore, appropriate to use a recent post of hers, the subject of which was Long-eared Owls, as the basis of a recent decision to try and revitalise the Owler's Blog Network (which I've totally neglected for many months!).

A sample of Noushka's work is given below, but you can find the full post on her blog at http://1000-pattes.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/le-hibou-moyen-duc-asio-otus.html.

copy permitted

Please do take time to look at Noushka's other posts, even if they are not about owls!!

OBN Welcomes Scott Weston

Until today, the OBN only had five members with all but one from UK (England, even!). So you might think that when I said we had a second request for membership from Essex, it was from the English county of Essex - but no, this was a second member from Essex, Massachusetts, USA.

I am delighted to welcome latest OBN member Scott Western. Scott's blog is a little different to those of other OBN members, being primarily a documentation of the owl sites that he monitors, and with the illustrations almost being secondary to that documentation. It is, nevertheless, an interesting read!

Scott's blog is not on the 'Blogger' system, but on 'Wordpress'. The link to his blog in the right hand column of this blog still works just fine, even if it doesn't show the thumbnail image of his latest post.

So now the OBN has six members - four from old England and two from New England!!

Welcome aboard Scott!

A Spanish Photographer of Note

OBN member Christian Thompson has brought to my attention the amazing blog of Spanish photographer Mario Cea. 

I believe that one post, in particular, will be of interest to OBN  members, and visitors to this blog. It showcases Mario's skills as applied to capturing images of Little Owls in action. One of the images from this post is reproduced below.

image by kind permission of Mario Cea

 What I particularly like, apart from the fabulous images, is that Mario shares with us his set-up for achieving these images. This set-up exhibits a total dedication to his hobby.

Please also take the time to look at some of Mario's non-owl images - they are truly stunning. You can find a link to Mario's Little Owl post at http://mariocea-fotofauna.blogspot.com/2011/09/el-ano-del-mochuelo.html . To get to his other posts, go to http://mariocea-fotofauna.blogspot.com/. To see the full post, you need to click on 'LEER MAS' at the bottom right of each post. You might also find the blog of his group of photographic friends of interest. You can find that at http://quedadanatural.blogspot.com/

OBN Welcomes Stevie Evans

A very warm welcome to the latest OBN member. Dedicated expert owler Stevie Evans from Co. Durham has just joined our ranks. Stevie has been an inspiration to me since I first became interested in owls. He is lucky enough to have all five UK species of owl local to him on a full-time basis, and has even had encounters with a Snowy Owl - although that was an escapee!! Stevie's blog 'Cut'n a Long story Short' (subtitled 'In Dusk We Trust'  - I wish I'd thought of that one!) is largely focussed on owling, but does also tell of other encounters with local wildlife. As well as his own experiences and photos, he also includes information and images from his many local contacts. This is another blog that you should not miss!

Welcome to the Latest Member of the OBN

Accomplished wildlife photographer Christian Thompson sent me an e-mail asking if his blog was "owly enough" to join the OBN. It didn't take me more than a quick glance to realise that the answer was a resounding "Yes!". Whilst Lancashire-based Christian has an overall interest in wildlife photography, his love of owls shines through in his blog Hiding in Cars. From his past work, I'm sure that we can look forward to plenty of interesting 'owly' posts from Christian in the future! Welcome aboard !!!

Book Review - 'Owls Of The World' by Rob Hume

Books on owls seem to be a bit few and far between, unless you are looking for a monograph on a particular species. For most of us, I guess that the monographs go into a level of scientific detail that is a bit more than we are looking for. I've been keeping my eyes open for owl books for more than a year now, so was pleased to find one recently that I was not aware of - 'Owls of The World' by Rob Hume, illustrated by Trevor Boyer.

Most of us, no matter where we live in the world, probably only have a handful of owl species that we can see within our own country. If you are passionate about owls, it is probably inevitable that one's thoughts occasionally turn to what species might be found in other countries. If that is the case, this is a book that could be of interest to you. This book takes us  genus by genus, species by species, though all known owl species worldwide (as far as I am aware!).

For each species the book gives descriptions of the bird, its distribution, habitat, character, diet, breeding pattern, status, etc.. The levels of description are a little variable, particularly as some of the species have been little studied or are almost unknown! Where there is debate as to what are different species or just a different races of the same species this is discussed. Also, each species (with just a few exceptions - where very little is known about a species) is beautifully illustrated by Trevor Boyer. At the end of the book there are small distribution maps for each of the species.

If I have any criticisms of the book they revolve around its use as an identification guide. Inevitably, there are many similarities between some of the species, even within a single geographical range. The descriptions of the species' physical characteristics are sometimes a bit woolly and occasionally seem to be at odds with the illustrations. Given that many owls are masters at changing their appearance, it would have been nice to have more than one illustration per species. For example, with several of the Pygmy Owls, it mentions the 'false face', with eye spots on the back of the head - but this feature is not illustrated anywhere!

In all other respects, however, the information in the book is to an informative and interesting level. This book might just tempt you to travel abroad and exercise your passion elsewhere !

The book is to a large format (32 x 25.5 cm) and has 192 pages. The quality of the paper and binding seems to be to a high level. -  ISBN 1-85585-352-3

This book is currently out of print, but there are second-hand copies around. I was lucky to find mine at Birdfair at Rutland Water last month. It was in a charity book sale organised by the Rutland Osprey Project, and I paid the princely sum of GBP 5.00 for the book which was in absolutely mint condition! Buying it second-hand through Amazon will currently cost you between GBP 30 and GBP 60, but you might find it much cheaper elsewhere - even in a 'remainder' shop?

An Introduction to the OBN's Administrator

I thought that perhaps it would be a good idea to introduce myself. My name is Richard Pegler, and it was my idea to start the Owlers' Blog Network, inspired by other networks of a more general nature.

I do not claim to have any great expertise on the subject of Owls. I've only been particularly interested in these birds for just under two years, being originally inspired by the work of my now good friend Paul Riddle (the first person to join this network), who has been known to refer to me as his 'apprentice'. I don't even claim to have had any long-term interest in birds in general, only having become interested with any degree of commitment about six years ago when I retired from work.

Given my limited knowledge, therefore, my intended role (as far as the OBN is concerned) is primarily that of administrator of this blog, although I will possibly make the occasional post if I come across information which I think might be important or of interest to owlers. I will also welcome input of this nature from other owlers. I do not intend to recount any of my personal owling experiences on this blog - I do that on my own blog 'Owls plus Other Birds and Delights of Nature'.

Thank you for visiting this blog. Please return in the not too distant future when I hope that we will have much more of interest to offer you.

Administrator contact: richard@peglermail.co.uk

Welcome to OBN's Second Member

A very warm welcome to 'Owls & Others of Essex & Beyond' - not to be confused with Essex in UK, this is the blog of  Phil Brown of Essex, Massachusetts, USA. Phil is a very accomplished wildlife photographer, and focuses mainly on birds, with his real passion being owls. However, in Phil's part of the world, owls are somewhat seasonal, being primarily a bird of  late autumn ('fall' in US parlance), winter, and early spring, so Phil's owl posts are a little thin on the ground at the moment. We can look forward to more of Phil's splendid posts on owls in the not too distant future!

Welcome to OBN's First Member

OBN welcomes 'Owl's About That Then!' - the blog of Leicestershire owling guru Paul Riddle. A link to Paul's latest post can be found in the right hand column of the OBN blog.