Barn Owls hunting. Cornwall 22nd May 2020.

After many hours I eventually managed to photograph both the male & the female Barn Owl out hunting last evening.
The female is much richer coloured on her back & wings and has speckles all over her underwings & breast. The male is more the classic "white owl" with a clean underside and much lighter back & wings.
Just love watching these fabulous birds!
#wildCornwall

These birds are feeding 6 owlets in a nestbox and as of today all 6 are surviving although 2 are very small.
The female is now taking a share of the hunting and last night didn't spend the night in the ever filling box. 

Here are several images from the evening as I took advantage of what sunlight there was. As dusk closed in they continued to hunt but the light levels eventually beat my camera's  settings!

 

Little Egret aggression

I watched a couple of Little egrets going for it this afternoon at Walmsley Sanctuary.

Initially I wondered if it was some kind of courtship chase but then things turned quite aggressive (could still have been courtship!).

There was one particular bird that wanted to attack all the other egrets in the reserve and it kept picking on others until this time it looked as if it was going to drown the other unfortunate bird.

Here is a short sequence of pictures taken from a fair distance away hence the poor quality!

Both birds flew away seemingly unharmed!