Popeye

I was having a discussion with West Midlands birder and photographer Dave Hutton about the merits of making one of his excellent Great Grey Shrike images Black & White. We’d both had a play with his photo and damn it looked good.

Dave suggested my B&W Little Owl image from 2011 would look good with the colour brought back in to the eye. I had a little play in photoshop and I like the result. Being a juvenile the eye isn’t that bright, piercing yellow – which might have been a bit too much really.

Little Owl

One of my favourite films is The French Connection with Gene Hackman, probably my favourite actor and certainly the best Lex Luthor, so his character Popeye Doyle inspired the title as the process I used is referred to as colour-popping.

Little Owl

Had a mess about with on old Little Owl photo last night while Leigh was watching America’s Next Top British Model or summat.

All I added was a frame and a green filter effect to darken the background. Looks like it could have come straight out of a 1950s Biritish Birds.

Owl Around My Hat

In the midsts of my man-flu, Paul Riddle contacted me to say he was off this week if I wanted to do a bit of Little Owl photography. We arranged to meet at Paul’s this morning at 07.00 for him to take me to his prime site. As I had to get to work after I agreed to follow Paul, so once he’d blindfolded me I followed his Landrover to his secret site in South Leicestershire.

The sun was coming up lovely and the four juvenile Owls performed brilliantly. They were not bothered one bit, mind you Paul’s Landrover doubles as a brilliant mobile hide.

Here are a few of the 1000+ images I took –  filled a 4Gb card in just over an hour!

Little Owl

Little Owl

Little Owl

Little Owl

Little Owl

Little Owl

Little Owl

Little Owl

Little Owl

Little Owl

Little Owl

Little Owl

Owls About That Then

Hi all,

Check out Paul Riddle’s Little Owl blog. Paul is aiming to find 100 Little Owl sites in South Leicestershire… and isn’t too far away. Hopefully Paul will also be linking up with a Phd student to study the Little Owl. Leicestershire seems to be bucking the trend of a national decline for these superb birds, or is it that Paul has now got such a good feel for Little Owl that we’re overlooking them?

Owls About That Then

After yesterday’s phone call from Dave Gray about two Short-eared Owl at Cossington Meadows I made sure I finished work within easy drive as it’s dark early now… if you hadn’t noticed.

A few birders were already out and about whilst Adrian Russell and his wife were out walking the dog – Adrian was using this as cover to investigate leaf-miners! So as well as carrying the obligatory bag of dog shit he also had a bag of leaves and leaf-miners. A couple of male Stonechat were in the hadge that borders the main track at either end.

I popped down to Tern Pool to look at the Red-crested Pochard (Cosso tick No1) and the headed back down the track to join Dave Gray and Roger Davis on Owl Watch. As dusk fell up to three (possibly four) Barn Owl showed well over Swan Meadow, a Buzzard was mobbed out of it’s roost by Carrion Crows and the first of three Little Owl started calling.

Soon enough we picked up a Short-eared Owl in the gathering gloom at the back of the meadow (Cosso tick No2). This flew off towards The Moor and over the head of Steve Campsall and his companions. They also had one perched up. Another Short-eared was crossing and recrossing the path of at least one of the Barn Owls.

On the way back to the cars in near dark a female Tawny Owl called between us and the Rectory Marsh area. What a great evening. Only needed a LEO for a full house