After discovering a Barn Owl hunting on our local patch some weeks ago Rob and I made it our mission to try and get some shots of this bird perched. After a few phone calls I had found out the name and address of the landowner and permission was granted for us to enter the field, place some perches and use our hides and camo netting. We spent quite a few hours in the hides on different occasions with only a few glimpses of the bird, on one occasion it was flying along the hedgerow towards us and our perches only to be chased of by a Herring gull, the same thing happened again  only this time it was being mobbed by Jackdaws.

During plenty of visits over the next few weeks we managed a few flight shots but the light was never right or the bird never came quite close enough. Late one afternoon I was in the hide when Rob arrived,  rather than disturb me he sat in his car and watched from further up the road, ten minutes later I received a text message from him to say the Owl was perched on a  post in the next rough field, we now realised that this was another of its favourite hunting areas and between us spent many hours observing the habits of this bird, getting a few more flight shots along the way.

During the last week I have not had too much time so Rob carried out the observations alone and it became apparent he was using one of the posts on a reasonably regular basis so it was only a matter of time before the first perched shot was achieved. Still working I was secretly gutted to be missing out on these opportunities and whilst at work this Saturday Rob managed to get some fabulous shots.

Sunday morning arrived, the weather was good and we both decided to try again. On my arrival at 6.50am I decided to head straight to the favoured perch, the Owl suddenly appeared and landed on the perch and I quickly rattled of some shots in the 14 secs that he was there. Rob arrived as the bird flew of the perch to hunt and quickly placed himself in full view of a different perch, the bird was very obliging and landed for both of us at different ends of the field so we both came away with the shots we had worked so hard to get.Barn Owl