Well slap my bum and call me Sally! A second Tawny (Female) roosting in the woods.

After comparing this bird to the one seen by the veggie patch just a few days ago, I think that this is a female (Henrietta) and the one by the veggie patch by deduction must be a male (Henry) - Females are much larger birds (25%) and about 5% taller. 

Amazing to have seen both in the same area so hope that they are a mating pair, although I have not seen any chicks/Owlets...

I hope the molting goes well and they return to the beautiful looking stunning birds they will be when in full plumage.   

What a week! ;-)  This has inspired me to make and put up a few more nest boxes.

Tawny Alert! - Finally and unexpectantly a Tawny Owl shows itself by the Veggie Patch.

The irony is not lost on me that we have a carnivore hanging out on a veggie patch!

I have heard the Tawnies call every year I have been at LBF but never caught sight of them until this evening.  As I glanced out of the bedroom window in anticipation of drawing the blinds (having another early night) I saw what at first I thought was the resident Little owl but to my surprise and delight, I was wrong.  

It was low light and the view finder in the camera showed that I was very under exposed; the available light was further hampered by the rather dirty bedroom windows, which I dare not open for fear of scaring the owl away.   NOTE TO SELF: Clean the windows!

With the camera now firmly set on the tripod, I cranked the shutter speed all the way down to 1/20 of a second (that's sloooooow) and put the shutter on a 5 second time delay to reduce camera shake.  ISO was limited to a maximum of 2500 on FStop 5.6 which is as wide open with the aperture as I can go with my 600mm lens to let in as much light as possible.  Once again these are somewhat 'grainy/noisy' images but I'm still excited to have recorded my first LBF Tawny pictures.  

I have no idea if this is a male or female, but for reasons yet unknown to me, I feel like it looks like Henry the VIII, so I have called him/her Henry/Henrietta.

I LOVE the feathery legs (socks) and huge, oversized feet with unforgiving talons! 

Henry/etta appears to be molting as the chest feathers still appear to be in pins; a beautiful little bird nonetheless.

Tawny Owl Nest Boxes - fingers X'd

A productive Saturday; purchased some exterior plywood and set about building 2 x Tawny Owl nest boxes. - Hopefully more boxes for Bats, Little Owls etc. to come over the next couple of weekends. Anyhoo hoo, here are the two boxes which I built using a design plan from the RSP website, which I modified slightly to incorporate a front inspection hatch. I was surprised at how big the boxes were at 1.13 meters tall. (https://www.rspb.org.uk/globalassets/downloads/activities-pdfs/tawny-owl-upright-nestbox.jpg) 

So, I had built them and then had the task of putting them up! I had one location in mind for about a year, so the first one went up in a jiffy and looks right at home. - Fingers x'd we get a Tawny or twooo!  Here is the first one in situ, it is in an Oak tree in the Eastern corner of the meadow.

The second box went up in the small copse near the pond, and is also in an Oak, about a meter or so higher than the first.

This was really a 2 person job, but with the aid of some rope, fisherman's knots and 'Heath Robinson' inspired approach, they went up reasonably well. I will have to keep an eye on both boxes as the trees will obviously grow over time and expand, potentially pushing the boxes off their fixings.