A day in the nature

In this transition period, both meteorological and animal behavior (winter is at the door and animals are preparing to deal with it, while some have already emigrated elsewhere), it's easy to go looking for other subjects, especially regarding the landscape. In fact, looking for some beautiful glimpse to take some photos in the area of Tempio, we found ourselves in a small oak forest where some trees had big holes. Inspecting them better, one of them also had a large longitudinal split from the ground where, inside, there were a lot of pellets.

The pellets are the indigest part, bones, hairs, feathers, of the prey that are often expelled shortly before eating a new prey (I seen from a buzzard, for example), and they are like a compact and elongated feces.

As we have seen them, from the size, I immediately thought of the barn owl and based on what they found on the net they should be really of this gorgeous night predator. In the photo I have inserted a magnification for comparison with a drawing:

 
and also according to the various descriptions found I believe there is no doubt about the paternity of the pellets. 

Now we just have to start studying the place in order to see if they are always there (they could just go for food) and if in the spring they nest in that tree, as we think and hope. Surely the initial period will be remote observation, as always, and through an hunting camera that we will have to remove from the fox (we have only one but in any case the fox does not abandon ) to put it near the tree in question, then once a week we'll go check it out. If we actually notice the presence of the barn owl, the next step will be to prepare the area to place the cabins, camouflaged flashes and any motion sensors or lasers if we want to try some photo with a wide angle lens, but it's still too early for that.

I hope to update you soon.

Giuseppe