Notice the change of heading? It is now Wales and not North Wales. The reason is that we drove south to the Newport area as we had arranged a couple of sessions in hides run by Ian Howells.

The first was an evening/night session in a hide specially set up to photograph Tawny Owl by flashlight - a totally new experience for me. We met Ian at our hotel and drove to the site - rather out-of-the-way - where there were two hides facing different directions, one for the Owls and the other for farmland birds, Buzzard and Sparrowhawk.

Ian set up the flash system which was connected to our own cameras and put out the bait. He explained to us how to set up our cameras and then we just waited for nightfall and the visiting Tawny Owl

We left around 1.00am after just three visits but enough to get some decent shots.

Ian had expected more visits but he thought that the female was sitting on eggs and not coming in to feed. Still, quite an experience.