Woodcock 0 – Tawny Owl 2

A cold week with strong easterly winds making this years nesting season one of the latest ever.

Two full days in Bowland looking for Woodcock nests once again produced none, not even a flushed bird. However, all that time searching the ground cover has produced two pairs of ground nesting Tawny Owls. This is a rare find and in the last forty years I have only ever seen two other ground nests of Tawny Owls.

In the garden Blue Tits have started taking moss into one of the nest boxes and we had a record number of six Chaffinches on the lawn.

A visit to the high moors one night was unproductive with no Golden Plover but some snow! I found a roosting Long Eared Owl in a pine and now have film of six species of Owl for the next DVD on the Pennines due out next year.

As I drove off the moors one morning a male Merlin flew over the bonnet of the car and rested on a fence post. It’s a good job there was no traffic behind me at the time!!