AnnMerciaPease

Hi Karen! No this guy was hand reared at the owl centre. He's quite happy and takes place in displays etc. Its actually illegal to release any hand reared owl jn the uk as they are imprinted on humans and all individually licensed. We do get an awful lot of owls in who have been bought as novelty pets then discarded into the wild - unfortunately because they have no experience of wild living many of them simply don't hunt and just sit on a branch and wait to be fed. These guys are often v.undernourished and highly stressed its such shame. Similarly we cannot keep a wild owl captive after it has been rehabilitated - it needs to be released back where if came from :)

These guys are this years birds - so 1st winter plumage = beautiful colouring. You do get grey birds but these are usually found in places where the winters are colder

Aw thanks guys! If you want to know abit more have a look at our Facebook page (Facebook/kirkowls) we usually put all our photos up on there too :)

Thanks Ismael! it's a brilliant app isn't it really enjoying looking at everyone's photos :) This guy was spotted from a hide - I was there for the birds but the squirrel kept coming in for the peanuts :)

They are squinting a little bit yes. They tend to be very sleepy during the mid day hours and wake up and start pipping and hooting after around 4 as it gets dark

There is a little one yes. I work in an owl centre and these two are wild tawnies that were brought in by members of the public after being involved in two separate traffic accidents. We have four tawnies here at the moment. They're quite tough and if the bang isn't too bad and it's just concussion they tend to do really well. These two are going to be released in next week it so :)

Aw thanks Karen! This was taken from a hide at Washington Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. It was an exceptionally cold day so there were a huge amount of birds at the feeders.