Species - Little Owl (Athene noctua)
Location - RSPB St Aidans Nature Reserve, Leeds
Grid ref - SE 39900 28760
I have been after an image of a Little Owl for ages, and after a visit to St Aidans Nature Reserve on the outskirts of Leeds, I discovered that the reserve has its own resident Little Owl living on the giant metal structure next to the visitor centre. This giant structure is an old drag line which is called ‘Oddball’, and is left over from the days when the site was a giant open cast coal mine.
After several visits to the site (which weren’t totally wasted) I still hadn’t seen the Little Owl, and on one of my repeat visits one of the staff at the visitor centre kindly propped up a model of a Little Owl for me to photograph (bottom left image).
But eventually perseverance paid off and on checking ‘Oddball’ there is was, sat on a post at the back. Luckily it stayed around long enough for me grab a few photos before it went off hunting.
The Little Owl, like the Short Eared Owl can hunt during the day, it was introduced from abroad in the 19th century. Numbers of Little Owl has dropped by about 25 percent in 10 years but not yet on the RSPB red list. A stunning little bird and happy to finally sighted and photographed one.
