A brand new feature for the blog from today.  From now on most posts published will have a Podcast included. That is to say, you will be able to play a version of me reading the post while you sit back and look at the pictures.  From time to time I will record "out on location" and you will be able to get a feel of actually being there with me.  I also plan to interview other wildlife enthusiasts out and about….. it's going to be fun.  So click on the link below and have a listen. 

LEO podcast

The day before yesterday, on the 1st of February, I was fortunate enough to catch up with the Long Eared Owl that has been on Exminster marsh, on and off for the last month.   I deliberately didn't post about it until today because of the harrasment that the publication here would cause. It's now safe to publish because the bird has moved on again so no damage can be caused by disclosing it's presence now.   It was good to see the bird, photograph it and add it to my gallery af Devon birds but it was also distressing and worrying to see how little regard other people had for it.  I am sad to say that in the short while that I watched it was pestered continually by people around my own age, that is to say, newly retired and reasonably fit pensioners who enjoy a walk and carry a pair of binoculars and take a casual interest in the birds.  It was as if they hadn't seperated the idea of this being a wild bird and not a Zoo exhibit.  In a zoo you would be noisy and get as close as you could, you would peer and possibly shout to your wife that "you can see it better from this angle".  You might walk right up to it and then say "I needde to do that because my camera isn't very good"……. yes that happened. So when I went to look yesterday andit wasn't there, I was pleased that it had chosen to roost elsewhere.

The problem was that it had picked a roost literally feet from the main RSPB Carpark and therefore the busiest spot on the whole marsh. Quite why it would do that is a mystery, probably because of an inbuilt instinct that it's camouflage was it's best defence and an assumption that it couldn't be seen.  I was struck with how cat-like it seemed and also how small, only the size of a wood pigeon, if that.