Simply owls

Fortunately the owls in Sardinia are not lacking, but it's at least a year since I could not make some photos of this beautiful night rafting. The opportunity is born after some months of sporadic observation from a distance with a binoculars, where I often saw the adult owl perched on a brach, or on a stone or a rusty metal bartender. So I decide with my friends Fabrizio to make a photographic blind. Needless to say but this morning the alarm was really challenging ... the clock sounds at 2.45 and I met at 4.15 with Fabrizio and then go to the place. With owls we usually use fixed photographic blind, if the landowner allows it, but in this case we did not need it, and we used mobile blind, which are very useful also for other animals. Arriving at 4.30 we prepare for the speed of light because we do not know if the owls are in the vicinity and, fortunately, they are not. We begin to wait for some owls to come, enjoying the sound of awakening Nature in the meantime: crows, Eurasian Thick-knee, owls and some axioms in the distance. After about 20 minutes one arrives (a male, but we understand this after the other adult is slightly larger, as is customary for the females) with a cricket in his mouth:

The light is really poor, in fact the ISOs are well over 3200 for only 0.6 seconds to shoot ... A real bet, but I could not miss the owl with his prey. From this moment the owl starts to jump on the stones or fly on the various perches (there are different ones, like the stone of the photo blatantly smeared with his stools) for the joy of ours eyes and the camera that must go "burst" for Immortalize the arrival on a shelf:

Where Luckily the Sun peaks through the clouds and begins to illuminate the area, allowing me this so hoped shot. The time passes and the owls alternate, before the male (much more present) and then the female seem to turn in turn, then we understand the reason: an owl young man shyly shakes the stones and controls it around. You see it is small, plumage is darker and wooly, not to mention that it is not yet ready to fly (it stretches and blows the wings often to prepare itself):

But the most beautiful thing was to understand that the Young owl was not alone, but they were in three, hiddens from the bush in the foreground, so we could not make any photographs. At the moment this is the couple with the largest number of owl chicks I've found, but it's easy to find couples with 4 or 5 youngster.The adults in turn bring food:

And they will continue thinking about it all morning, or at least until it's too hot, then wait for the sunset to resume hunting and nurturing their little ones.