Owl and about

I set out to look for the barn owl again following my butterfly afternoon. I took a different route to the usual one, and missed a turning. The road lead to the second place I'd seen the owl from, so it wasn't all bad. As I approached the turn in the road by the gate I was amazed to see a fallow buck grazing in one of the owl's fields. Luckily there was no traffic behind me as I slammed on and pulled into the field gateway. I fired off a couple of record shots from the car window then got out, fully expecting the deer to flee.

Young buck

It looked at me then went on grazing for a while and I got some more shots from the gate. The deer trotted off after a while so I wandered up the road in the direction it had headed to see if I could get another glimpse of it. That was when I spooked a little owl which few into a tree on the other side of the road. There was a rabbit grazing in a paddock and a kestrel flew overhead. Then the owl left the tree by the road and sought cover in a large willow. I'd walked less than fifty yards!

Disappearing owl

The deer hadn't gone anywhere I could see from the road so I went back and entered the field, which has a public footpath through it. I got to the place where the deer had been, looked to my right across a ditch and...

Surprised!

I had to zoom OUT to get all of it's antlers in the frame! I got some more head shots before it wandered off and watched me from over a fence before commencing grazing in an onion field.
Then I took the back lanes to go looking for the barn owl. On the way I stopped off for a corn bunting opportunity. Quite approachable birds that they are, too.

Back on it's perch

Down the lane that leads to the owl fields there were more birds, including a mistle thrush, reed buntings and skylarks. The barn owl failed to show up. Not that I was complaining after getting so close to the deer.

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