little owl

The little owl (Athene noctua) is a small, grey-brown owl with white spots and streaks. It has a distinctive flat-topped head and yellow eyes. These owls are widespread across Europe, Asia, and North Africa. They were first introduced to Britain in the late 19th century and to New Zealand in the early 20th century.

It was tough to pick which images to add to my Little Owl gallery; having spent many hours photographing them up in Yorkshire over several years when my family lived in Patley Bridge. Most of the images here are of the same family from different times of year. It was wonderful to be able to spend time with them and watch their behaviour and their many different facial expressions. I was also lucky enough to get some images of chicks one year too.

Incredibly hard to spot as you will see from some of the images and very wary of people they require great patience and luck to photograph. A lot of these were taken from a chair hide and the owls soon got to recognise me as they would often appear not long after I got settled in the field; check me out and then disappear for a while. Almost like they came to say hello.

The images to the right is probably my all time favourite image of a Little Owl and in fact is a young Chick. I was sat in my chair hide in front of a lovely old Yorkshire stone wall and I could hear a chick calling and calling. I was looking as best I could; I knew it was close but just couldn’t see it anywhere then I got a little glimpse of half a face peering from around the side of the old gateway in front of me. I was able to fire off only 3 or 4 frames before the face moved back behind the wall and did not reappear again. A truly magical moment.