Friday 10 July 2015

At Long Last! Found it! Got it!

The Little Owl.  Thanks to one of my blogging friends, Richard Pegler http://peglerbirding.blogspot.co.uk/  who found a Little Owl on one of his trips to Portland Bill.   So ever since, every time we went to Portland Bill, we were looking out for the Little Owls and yesterday we found one in one of the old quarries along the coast from the Lighthouse.  Malcolm my partner was the one who saw it first and I did manage to get a few pictures of it :-)  Thankyou Richard for discovering that Portland had these owls their old quarries  :-)

My very first picture of a Little Owl! 
 
The Little Owl flew off onto some rocks near the edge, trust me, that little blob on the rock is the Little Owl 
 
There was someone else who was looking at me, a Wall Lizard
 
Need your help here, anybody with an expert eye, what is this bird? it looks like to me a pale Common Buzzard.  It was in the same location as the Little Owl.  Not a brilliant picture but I hope it is enough to identify this bird.

5 comments:

Roy Norris said...

Well done Lyn. Every time I visited the Bill I have searched for that Owl and never found it.

Linda Yarrow said...

Thankyou Roy.

Richard Pegler said...

So pleased that you connected with a Little Owl on Portland, Linda! I'm not sure, but I think that might be a juvenile - hard to tell at that distance.

As for your mystery bird, again, hard to tell at that distance, but I fear it may be a Sparrowhawk. If so, that's bad news as they will take a Little Owl - especially an unwary and inexperienced juvenile.

Roy Norris said...

I have had another look at that bird and it looks like a Common Buzzard to me Lyn.

Linda Yarrow said...

Thankyou Roy and Richard. If the Little Owl is a juvenile, that is good news, that hopefully means the population of Little Owls on Portland is on the increase. I did wonder if the mystery bird was a Sparrowhawk, possibly a female, it was there at the same time we saw the Little Owl.