Short-eared Owl and Green Woodpecker, Elmley, Kent, 14/7/2012

The weather forecast is for grey cloud and rain for most of the day everywhere !

I picked up M.S. and Kevin as per usual at 05.30 hours, we have no ideas, no plans, negative attitudes ! !

A drive past their ''patch'', viewed from the road, a look at the gulls and maybe a Wood Sand or LRP, the light is bad, i do not look very hard !

We move on

About 07.30 hours we turn off the main road for the entrance to Elmley, before the first farm we take the right turning up towards the bridge, all quiet, the light is little better !

We see a Short-eared Owl  sitting on a post !

Camera set at ISO 1000, windows down, nobody moves, carefull car positioning, we are in best possible position to get a photo !

The time is 07.40 hours, the start of an incredible 75 MINUTES

A Green Woodpecker juvenile lands on a nearer post, this automatically gets photo'd first, the SEO is doing nothing !

   

07.41 hours, the Short-eared Owl, 'all three positions sitting on a post'.

07.42 hours, the family of Green Woodpeckers turn up and took over the show.
An adult male and a female plus two juveniles put on an 75 minute display, calling alarm calls constantly,  switching perches, sync poses ! !

The Short-eared Owl drops out of view,

The juvenile and the adult female

07.52 hours, the Short-eared Owl gets back up to perch, this time aggravated by a Kestrel that came in to check him out !

Back with the Green Woodpecker family, the light is getting better

Then it is the turn of the adult male

08.42 hours, the Short-eared Owl re-appears, this time to be anoyed by a Magpie

The light has got a lot better, 400 ISO

08.56 hours, the ''show'' is over, the Short-eared Owl flies off left, the Woodpeckers move behind us, we move on to the track to Elmley !

The clouds roll in, the light gets worse, it starts to rain, we sit and listen for the Quail we saw and heard last week.

The weather had closed in for the day, we gave up early !