Photo of barn owl captured in Woolton Hill area

A wildlife photographer captured this stunning image of an owl on the border of Hampshire and Berkshire.

Neil Brailsford took this shot of a male barn owl early on the morning of Saturday, October 1,while he watched the creature hunting in a field in the Woolton Hill area.

Mr Brailsford posted up in the field at 5.30am waiting to capture something, and eventually the owl appeared no less than 10 feet away from him at 6.45am.

He said: “This is why we get up at silly o'clock and sit hidden in wet fields in 8 degrees for hours on a weekend. It’s for those 20 seconds of heart stopping moments.”

Mr Brailsford watched the owl between 6.45am and 7.10am while he quartered the fields. Quartering is how a barn owl hunts, methodically flying over an area in search of prey.

The keen photographer regularly posts on his Instagram account @nbee_photography.

The account, which has nearly 1,500 followers, contains wildlife photographs of a variety of different animals, including owls, birds, deer, monkeys, meerkats, frogs, badgers and much more.