Tawny Owl

Every April I manage to find this male Tawny Owl roosting in our woodland. This year there was no sign of him and I feared that he may have died in the extreme weather in December, especially as in January and February I could hear the female calling at night but never heard a male respond. Over the past few weeks however I have been hearing young Owls calling throughout the night, so I decided to have a good luck around and was pleased to find him roosting in the ivy that covers one of the large oak trees.

I'm sure he's the same bird I have been photographing for some years now as he is very tolerant of my presence. I spent a bit time doing these shots, firstly because the lack of light meant I was shooting at very low shutter speeds - 40th of a second, so needed to make sure they were sharp. I also wanted to try and get some different poses, a drawn out process, as a sleeping bird doesn't really do much. He did occasionally have a look around though and I think must have heard or seen the odd small mammal, as you can see from some of the photographs.