I seem to have spent an awful lot of hours in a van this past week, driving from Devon to Norfolk last Friday and spending 6 hours travelling from place to place over the weekend whilst there and then driving back to Devon on Sunday. The thought of driving to Buckinghamshire and back in a day on Wednesday to photograph the Little Owlets seemed like one step too far, but when you have a friend as knowledgeable as Neil (who has been studying these particular birds for a long time) and he is certain once again (see my blog post Little Owls) that the Owlets will make an appearance you just haver to bite the bullet.

Rather than an early start neil suggested we visit during the evening as the Owlets were more likely to show then. We set off at lunchtime in blistering temperatures of 34"C and with no air con in my van it was certainly not a comfortable journey. 

Once again we met with Neil and after a brief chat made our way to this fantastic location to be greeted with one of the Owls already out in full view. We set ourselves up in the hide and waited just a short while before once again the Owlet came and perched in front of the hide. This comical youngsters stayed around for a while and was then joined by another, we also saw the adults too but disturbance from people enjoying the fabulous weather meant the visits were short.

The Owls were only with us for about 20 minutes in the couple of hours we were there but what treat! and once again we both came away very happy to have seen and even photographed these Owls and their youngsters.

On leaving the site we had views of 2 Green woodpeckers and earlier when we arrived we saw the ring necked parakeets, maybe I will go back to photograph them some time. Once again a very big thank you to Neil.

Little Owlet