Four Months Of Little Owls
Little owls are one of five species of owls that are resident in and regularly breed in the United Kingdom, the other species are barn, long-eared, short-eared and tawny owls. Eagle owls and snowy owls are infrequently found in the UK and less frequent breeders, with the origins of any eagle owls being more likely escaped captive birds than natural visitors to our shores. Little owls are not native to the UK and were introduced at the end of the !9th Century, having now spread across much of England and the whole of Wales. Following their successful spread, the number of little owls in the UK has declined with there now being around 6,000 breeding pairs. Globally, little owls are widespread across Europe, Asia and North Africa. Little owls have also been introduced into New Zealand. Little owls can be found in a wide range of habitats. In the UK, little owls are mainly found in agricultural land with hedgerows and trees, orchards, woodland verges, parks and gardens, occasionally they venture into our villages and suburbs.
Over the last sixteen years that I have worked as a professional wildlife photographer, I have photographed little owls at various locations. The agricultural fields around my house in Staffordshire have several little owl territories. One year I found three little owl nests within a mile of my house, I am sure there are more territories to be found. I have also photographed a pair of little owls that nested in an abandoned building on the site of a former coal mine in North Staffordshire which you can read about here.
A couple of years ago, I was informed of another local location where little owls had been seen. Despite checking the location on several occasions, I did not see any little owls at it. Then, at the beginning of this year, my wife confirmed that one of her friends had recently seen little owls at this location. This time I was in luck and found the little owls where my wife had been told they had been seen. Over the next four months, from the start of Spring and into Summer, I spent many long hours watching and photographing these charismatic little owls.
Little Owls In A Redwood Tree
This year the little owls nested in one of the redwood trees within their territory. Whilst I managed to photograph one of the little owls perched in a hole in this redwood, the actual hole they nested in was hidden out of site. This was the first and only time that I have seen little owls, or any other species of owl, nesting in a redwood tree in the UK, though doubtless others do nest in these trees. Redwoods are native to California and were first brought to the UK around 160 years ago. It is now believed that there may be more giant redwoods growing in the UK than remain in their native California. It was interesting to see these non-native little owls nesting in a non-native redwood tree not far from my house.
NB: By clicking on an individual image in the galleries in this blog the image will open in a separate larger lightbox.
The Little Owls Hunted From Many Different Perches
The little owls hunted from different perches in their territory, including fence posts, telephone posts and tree branches. All of these perches were in place and were being used by the little owls before I started photographing them. All I had to do was: (a) work out which perch(es) the little owls were using; (b) how the light worked with each perch; (c) position my car (which I was using as a mobile hide) in the right place without my camera and lens falling off the bean bag on the car window, and then hope that one of the little owls would be obliging enough to use the perch and allow me the time to make an image. After some time, I learned which perches the little owls preferred to use and started to make images of them.
The Small Industrial Unit
Although in a rural location, there is a small industrial unit in the little owls territory. From a practical perspective, the little owls would not generally hunt when there was any work going on at this unit. This meant that I could only spend time working with the little owls before or after the unit had closed. From a photographic perspective, the presence of the unit added an extra dimension to my work, juxtaposing the natural world with man made industry. Rather than being limited to the more traditional perches that most little owls use when hunting, these little owls would make use of a wall that ran along one side of the unit. The background behind this wall varied from one end to the other, from the metallic cladding of the building on the unit, to a pile of old car tyres to lush green vegetation. The pile of old car tyres in particular made for different images. By varying the distance I photographed from the wall, the focal length and aperture I used, I was able to include more of less of the tyres and how much of their detail was shown in an image.
Wide Angle Remote Camera Photography
As Spring turned in to Summer, I had managed to make many images of the little owls, all at medium to long focal lengths. With these images in the bag, I moved on to making wide angle images using a remote camera set up. I had observed that one of the little owls would frequently perch on the end of the wall in front of the industrial unit. Being naturally curious, I hoped that if I set up a remote camera near to the end of the wall, this little owl would come and investigate it. Only a short time after I put the remote camera in place, the little owl came to investigate it. The only problem was that the PocketWizard Plus III wireless triggers that I was using to trigger the Nikon Z9 with the Nikon Z 14-24mm f/2.8 lens that I had set up would not activate focus. I had set the Nikon Z9’s autofocus to all area with bird subject detection. After much frustration, I reverted to using Nikon’s SnapBridge App which I had on my iPhone. Whilst a little “clunky” the SnapBridge allowed me to remotely focus on the little owl and then to activate the Nikon Z9’s shutter. I subsequently worked out that, like many wildlife photographers, having set up my camera so that it only focuses using one of the camera’s back buttons and not when the shutter button is depressed, these settings prevented the PocketWizard’s from wirelessly activating the camera’s autofocus. I now know that when using a Nikon camera remotely with wireless triggers, shutter button focusing has to be activated to enable the wireless triggers to activate the camera’s autofocus. Despite my “user error” I did manage to make some wide angle images of this curious little owl that show it in part of its environment.
Behind The Scenes
The quote “never work with children or animals” is often attributed to W.C Fields. Whatever the origins of this well known quote, as a wildlife photographer I have at least got it half right! By their nature, little owls are very curious and given the right environment will actively investigate any potential new perch that is introduced into their territory that they can use to hunt from. This includes any remote camera set up they spot. Given the problems I was having with the wireless triggers, when the little owl started using my camera as a perch instead of posing in front of it, this brought some much needed relief from the stress I was going through with the wireless triggers. It also allowed me to make some behind the scenes images of the remote camera set up, although in hindsight I wished I had not covered my Nikon Z9 with a camouflage rain cover.
Photography Notes
Location
The little owls’ territory is on private land with no public access to it or right of way over the private road that leads to it. The location is not a commercial pay-to-photograph commercial hide site that offers little owl photography. All of the images of the little owls in this blog were made using my car as a mobile hide.
Equipment
The following photographic equipment was used in this little owl project:
Nikon Z9 Mirrorless Cameras (x2)
Nikon Z6III Mirrorless Camera
Nikon Z 600mm f/4 TC VR S Lens
Nikon Z 600mm f/6.3 VR S Lens
Nikon Z 400mm f/4.5 VR S Lens
Nikon Z 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR S Lens
Nikon Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S Lens
Gitzo Tripod and Arca Swiss Ballhead
PocketWizard Plus III Wireless Triggers (x2)
Apple iPhone 14 Pro and Nikon SnapBridge App
Wildlife Watching Supplies Double Bean Bag (Large) and Camera And Lens Cover