Photographing Little Owls at the Brine Pit Wildlife Hides

Last year I went on a 2 day photo trip to the Otterbourne Hides where I met Trudi and Marian. It’s great meeting new photograph friends and on day 2 of the trip, we were team left hide when photographing the kingfisher. Since then, we have remained in touch and have been trying to meet up for another photography session.

 I did a lot of searching online to find a central location for us all to meet up, and to make sure we actually came away with some photos, we figured a stint in a hide would be our best option, enter the Brine Pit Wildlife Photography Hides.

There were a few hides to choose from, including kestrel, kingfisher, reed bed, reflection pool and fox hides, but we settled on Little Owls for our first visit.

My day started early with a 2 hour drive to get to the hides for a 8am start. After missing the turn-off and eventually arriving at the yard, I met the owner Sharron, who showed me over to the hide where Trudi and Marian were already getting set up.

Sharron gave us the run down on how the day would go and left us with some meal worms to put out on our chosen perches.

There were 2 hides coving the Little Owls, and while they were set up for 2 people in each, they can fit up to 4, so we moved into the left hide and set up our gear. Each hide is kitted out with some comfortable seating and the use of gimbal heads.

We didn’t have to wait long for the first of the Little Owls to show. They live in the nearby oak tree and this year the adults had raised 3 healthy chicks, which were the first to visit us.

It was great to be able to see and photograph the owls, they were very used to people so were not bothered by us moving the lenses through the photo holes. They made their way onto the different perches, eating up the mealworms as they went.

This year has been unseasonably dry, so the grass in this field was very yellow. However, that made for an excellent background for some of the lower perches, the background was completely blurred out (even at f6.3) and really helps the owls to stand out in the images.

The fence that is set up just to the left of the hides, is also a great feature and with the field sloping away, again the background is thrown into a beautiful blur of colour.

After a while, the adult male came in, and gosh is he a handsome fella (we know now that this one is the male due to the damage in his left eye). I was able to get some lovely shots of him on the perches, before his fleeting visit was over (for now).

There were also some juvenile Great Spotted Woodpeckers that came into visit, making the most of the mealworms we had put out for the owls.

After a while of trying and failing to get some good action shots of the owls flying with the 200-600, I swapped onto my trusty 70-200 GM ii lens, and tried again. I have to say that this was still very hard. I found the owls hard to track and keep in the frame (I have lots of empty images where I messed up my tracking 😂), but I did eventually get one that I really liked and was properly in focus.

One of my favourite images from the first part of our day here is where one of the young little owls is on the fence, looking down at a juvenile woodpecker lower down the post.

After a while, the owls went a bit quiet, choosing to sit up in the big oak tree nearby. I was able to get some images of the young owls up there, which I really love, especially the one where it is giving the camera the classic f**k off face, that I love about the Little Owls.

We waited until all the owls had disappeared and headed out to do a bit of a set change, so that we would get more of a range of images. There was plenty to choose from, and we swapped a few different bits around before reworming them and heading back in to wait for the owls to return.

The adult male was back first, and was very obliging by sitting on our newly installed perches.

The young were back in, and we were all hoping that they might perch together for us, but alas that was not to be this time. They did land on some of our new perches and I managed to capture a rather comical image of one of the young looking at the camera, as well as one seemingly defying gravity, or having the ultimate entry into the planking challenge (hello 2011 😂).

I also captured some lovely images of the great spotted woodpeckers, who continued to visit the site throughout the day.

In all, we had the most amazing day. Not only were we able to catch up with one another, we had a great experience photographing and watching the little owls, and we will definitely be back to explore some of the other hides available here (I am thinking foxes and kestrels for sure!).

At the time of writing this, the little owl hide cost £100 per person for the day, and for me, it was definitely worth it. I have struggled to find little owls locally and while I am sure I will get some comments about the use of hides not being ‘real’ wildlife photography, to me, they have their place and like I said, I will be heading back here again.

Follow Trudi and Marian on Instagram:
Trudi: https://www.instagram.com/trudirowland/
Marian: https://www.instagram.com/marianpayne1194/ 

Check out the Brine Pit Hides: https://www.brinepitwildlifephotography.co.uk/