A day out in the countryside.

Having been invited the day before by those two top Warwickshire wildlife photographers Kath Everitt and Geoff Haynes to join them on a trip to an open air theatre I found myself early on Wednesday morning setting off to meet up with them.

So where was this "open air theatre"? Well it was in a set aside field in deepest Northamptonshire two miles west of the small village of Hanging Houghton.So what was on show? An exhibition of hunting and flying by a group of Short Eared Owls.If they turned up that is.

We got there just before 11.30AM and immediately saw a pair of SEO's on the set aside field (sorry I should say the open air theatre). Here are a few shots of these cracking birds before they flew off.

After 20 minutes they flew off and a long intermission followed of over an hour when nothing was showing.Unfortunately by this time any early brightness had gone and it became a little gloomy.Getting a bit bored I wandered over to the hedge line and was lucky to be in a decent position when one appeared again just after 1.00PM.It appeared to catch something and settled down to eat it.

Although a bit far off I did manage a few shots and if you look carefully you can see the vole (?) it's eating.

After this at least five of them were on display flying all over the place.Wonderful to watch but for me damned hard to get a shot of as I'm blowed I could keep them in focus as they zoomed around.I'm pretty certain I broke the world record for the number of out of focus shots taken in one session.Here are a few I managed in focus well nearly in focus.

Just before we left one of them posed for us as it settled on a small bush.Oh for a big lens and of course someone to carry it as I'm blowed if I could.Great day.