Little Owls! 20th July

Saturday morning saw us head up to Farmoor for the first time since our holiday. We were keen to do a spot of local birding for a change and, quite frankly, were a bit tired of driving lots of miles out of our area to see decent birds. The problem is though, in order to see really good birds and to add to the ever growing year list, an excursion away from Oxfordshire is generally required. Recently our twitches had become a bit hit and miss, we had successfully added Gull-billed Tern to our life list this month but had also managed to dip on no fewer than three scarce Heron species in Squacco, Black-crowned Night and Purple. A trip to Nottinghamshire last weekend had got us a Honey Buzzard but birding is tricky this time of year so the year list had very slowly grown to #248. 

We didn't expect to find anything at Farmoor to add to the year list but hoped that they'd be a few waders around that we could at least study. Equally we never expected to encounter a mob of lycra clad Triathlon contestants in the car park either but that's just what greeted us as we arrived. Apparently they would all be running around and swimming in the reservoirs so it didn't seem as if our plan to bird there would be very fruitful at all. We beat a hasty retreat!

Earlier in the week a friend of mine had sent me a photo of a Little Owl that he was seeing frequently while driving into a site that he was working at. Mrs Caley had yet to see a Little Owl this year so we headed west into the Cotswolds to find it. I knew the village where the Owl had been seen but also knew that he was working on a large private estate with no unauthorised vehicular access so we'd have to find the driveway and then park up and walk. It didn't take long to find the drive since my mate had sent me a photo of the Little Owl stood on a fence so I just had to find the fence, which proved to be relatively easy. Conveniently there was parking nearby at a farm shop. I checked the map and noticed, just like the Little Owl that I saw earlier in the year, that the driveway was around 50 metres the wrong side of the Oxon border, so there would be no county birding this weekend again!

We gained the entrance to the estate drive and studied the fence line but could see no Owls so we started along the track. The field to the west had typical mature parkland trees, any one of which would be suitable nesting and roosting spots for Little Owls. The field to the other side was grazed by sheep and would provide suitable feeding areas for the birds so I could understand why they would be here. We had almost reached the end of the drive at the furthest end of the fields but had seen nothing bar a Red Kite so we turned around and decided to go for a coffee at the farm shop. Just as we thought that our luck was out I noticed a medium sized bird box on the tree in the western field closest  to the drive and was amazed to see the outline of two Little Owls stood in it. Mrs Caley was delighted! As Owls are prone to do, they were staring straight at us, seemingly as interested in us as we were in them. Little Owls are declining breeders in the UK and have become harder to find in our area since all of the sites that I know of have been vacated.

juvenile Little Owls

On closer inspection through the binoculars I could see that the two Owls were juveniles, this years brood, and as we watched another Owl broke cover, presumably an adult, and made for a tree further away across the park. We had missed the box when we walked in because it was obscured by a branch and some leaves only being visible if you had walked further along. A fourth Little owl then flew from a tree next to the driveway, one that I had studied earlier because of the amount of ivy growing around it which can provide good cover for roosting Owls, and landed in the nest tree. This bird an adult, perched on an outer branch and also stared back at us unerringly.

adult Little Owl

I noticed that the two juveniles had moved from their position on the box but it didn't take long to find both close by in the tree. They had probably only fledged very recently and appeared to be still reliant on the parent birds and hence stayed very close to the box. It's always heartening to see successful breeding.

Not wanting to bother the birds any longer, we'd watched them for around fifteen minutes, we made our way back to the car park in search of that coffee.

But before we had even gained the car a message came through to my phone that a pair of White-rumped Sandpipers had been found at Frampton Marsh in Lincolnshire. It was only 11 o'clock and with nothing better to do I thought 'why not?' Frampton Marsh is just about the best RSPB reserve in the country and is always throwing up good birds. Already this month it has hosted a Black-winged Pratincole and the Squacco Heron alluded to earlier. Sadly both had departed before we had a chance to see either, in the case of the Squacco our failed attempt was to Frieston Shore just up the coast a couple of days after it had been seen at Frampton. We'd seen a White-rumped Sandpiper before on two occasions in Cornwall but both times the views had been very distant, so it wouldn't be a new bird for us, but it would be an addition to our year list.  No brainer then and we were on our way. Route planner calculated just over a two hour drive which wouldn't be too bad and we'd be there before 2 o'clock that afternoon. Except that route planner didn't know about a traffic snarl up at Banbury which did my head in so I called it off and instead made plans to go early the following morning!