They're being given a hard time by the local Lesser Black-backed Gulls and maybe that's why they seem to leave it quite late in the afternoon before starting to hunt.
No matter how good your camera and lens, sometimes you need a bit of luck and we certainly had that on Sunday. We had been watching one of the owls from quite some distance away and it showed no sign of wanting to come close. We decided that if the owl wouldn't come to us, then we had to move and try and get nearer to it.
As we did so, we found out why it was that so far that afternoon we had been watching only one of the two owls seen previously. It seems that not all Short-eared Owls wake up and go hunting at the same time. Purely by chance, we happened upon the second bird sitting on a bank, looking like its alarm had just gone off! It was remarkably approachable and seemed happy to stare back at us before eventually flying off quite lazily and finding another resting place only a short distance away.
And Short-eareds weren't the only owls in the neighbourhood. While we watched them, we in turn were being watched by this Little Owl.
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