Well after a long time baiting, watching and attempting to photograph Tawny owls I finally managed to get a few shots of the bird as it landed on a perch about 5m in front of me, this particular bird has been coming to the bait daily but more often than not the trail camera picks up nothing. After sitting in the hide a few weeks ago the bird appeared in good light and came in like a flash and grabbed the bait as it flew past, hence the lack of footage. Like the Barn owl I suspected these birds were also breeding, my suspicions were they would be in the lower end of the wood despite not knowing exactly where.

This last week or so my assumptions that they had bred were confirmed, the Adults were flying earlier in the evenings than normal and had also been spotted at 2pm flying on the woodland edges (probably trying to find enough food for chicks). During one evening sat in my hide I heard the familiar alarm call of the Blackbirds which always signal the arrival of the tawny, the blackbirds will chase the Owl as it flies trying to drive it away and as the owl flew 50m or so away from me I could hear a strange call that I have never heard before, the wheezy sounding call was coming from two directions and the blackbirds were going crazy! A few minutes later I saw an owl fly to my left and land on a spindly branch followed by another and then by a third. My initial thoughts were that there was 3 owlets but many times since I have only heard two so I am assuming one was an adult bird with the two owlets. A few days later I was fortunate enough to see two owls land on my perch, one was the adult and closely followed by one chick, the adult immeadeatly flew off leaving the chick in front of me, this was the moment I had been waiting for and I pressed the shutter, resisting the urge to fire multiple shots for fear of scaring it. The cute looking little chick turned its head to face the noise from the shutter each time it was pressed but stayed and allowed me to take 21 shots of it sat there before it flew to the tree besides me where the adult was calling.

probably one of my best wildlife encounters to date and a bird I have always wanted to photograph so to get the chance to photograph owlets at this stage of their development which I have rarely seen photos of was a real privilege.

The Barn owls have raised two chicks and although I have not been photographing them since they started breeding I have been carrying on with the baiting, hopefully very soon they will also find their way over to where the perch and bait is.