The old farmyard buildings hold a pair of barn owls and little owls. The scolding blackbirds always let you know when they are about. The little owls are likely to nest somewhere in the abandoned livestock pens and the crumbling brick wall is a favourite perch. Of course, this photograph is as much about the…
Tag: Little owl
Cooling Marshes
In winter, the grazing marshes below Cooling have a wild beauty especially under a late afternoon sun that splices the broken clouds. This autumn, a large flock of some 600 lapwings sit out the day on the fields but are constantly restless and at low tide shift to the narrow strip of firm ground created…
July’s butterflies
In grassland fields near Theydon Bois in Essex, huge veteran oaks and long defunct hedgerows of blackthorn, bramble and elm play host to little owls, woodpeckers and flocks of young blue and great tits and the July butterflies are abundant. One of the old oaks has a single purple hairstreak looking old and worn but…