A KEEN amateur photographer got a bit of a surprise while walking through the woods last week near Winchester when he saw two “black beady eyes” staring back at him from the bottom of a tree.

Adam McCartney was in Micheldever Wood, near Winchester, looking at the bluebells when he spotted the ball of fluff on its own.

The 32-year-old from Shirley Road, Southampton, a Daily Echo Camera Club member, turned to his fellow photographers and discovered it was a tawny owl chick, no more than two weeks old.

Adam said: “I looked down and there was two little black beady eyes looking back. I didn’t know what to do so I put it on the Camera Club.”

He called the Bird Of Prey Hospital, based in Alresford, who came out and rescued the chick.

“She said he was quite weedy and really quite young,” Adam added. “He wouldn’t have survived.”

The chick will now be looked after by the hospital until it’s mature enough to be released back into the wild.