Fabulous First Fledgling

Last night we had a long awaited fine evening and we saw from the owl cams that the fledglings were out! So we headed over to the barns and sure enough our bairns were practising flying the lengths of the barns. The light inside the barns was too poor to capture them in flight but then we saw that one of them had landed on a fence post. She was taking a look at the world beyond the barns! Perhaps she was gazing at swallows flying around. ( I say “she” because females tend to have more distinct brown outlined facial discs and brown speckles on their fronts.)

She turned her head right round to look in my direction. I was hidden behind a board but she might have pondered the glassy round face of the camera lens poked through our observation hole.

After a minute or so she gently took off from the post and swooped back down into the barn.

Here you can see the brown freckles on the owl’s breast.

Back in the barn she settled on a piece of machinery.

After this our friends’ dog came bounding over to greet us and the owls retreated back into their box. I hope they later came out and enjoyed the beautiful pink sky as we did on our way home.

If only that post had had an owl silhouetted on it, now that would have been the perfect photograph!