Barn Owl

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I made a 40 min drive to Leighton Moss Reserve  today. Naturally I was in the wrong place at the wrong time to see the family of otters that other people saw - but I struck lucky by being one of the few to spot this lovely barn owl out hunting at midday. It was cold and frosty this morning so perhaps the owl went hungry last night and was making up for lost time. It's always a treat to see a barn owl - I am afraid it was a distant glimpse and these shots are heavily cropped.



We rarely see barn owls by our house - there prefer open arable land and scrubland so perhaps the locality doesn't suit them.Barn owls hunt small mammals and find them by hearing usually.

Diary
I saw lots of other birds at Leighton Moss but will deal with these on other days. I caught a good shot of a polecat on  overnight cameras. There was a feature on polecats on last nights "Winterwatch" programme on the BBC. Apparently even escaped animals are showing "pure bred" DNA after about 20 years in the wild , so all the discussion about "is it a pure bred or a hybrid" is probably academic. This shot was taken very close to the house in exactly the same spot where I filmed a stoat recently. I find it astonishing that two such similar animals can share the same habitat. I can't find any research on this - please let me know if you know better!
Regular visitors to my blog will notice the picture quality is better than usual in this shot. I have increased my stock of camera traps from 3 to 4 and the newest one has a 30 megapixel resolution as opposed to 20 megapixels in the old cameras. I am now dissatisfied with the old cameras!
I also caught a lot of wood mice and a farm cat on camera!
Lots of lapwings in the field by the house today. Weather remains cold but sunny.




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