Encounters with Owls

In the Winter of 2007/08 my Dad built an owl box about the size of a small dog kennel and with the help of friends put it in a large ash tree in a field - it was about 300m from the house.  The first summer it successfully housed a pair of Barn Owls which had two chicks which fledged.

The following summer, 2009, two more chicks fledged from the pair.  This was a cracking start to the project and the bonus was that in the summer and we would see Barn Owls in daylight hunting for food in the fields nearby. 

They would sail across the field with jinking flight where there was a sniff of prey and the daylight apparition of an owl flying through the garden became normal. There were plenty of perches around for them too.  Ideal for the distant but inexpert photographer.

In my youth my views of Owls were restricted to Barn Owls hunting over rough scrub and dyke banks bounding the fields around where I live in North Nottinghamshire and also on early morning forays in North Norfolk where they seemed to be common place.  It was always a treat to see them.  To have them effectively as close a part of background activity as blue tits and blackbirds was just spectacular.

2010 was a bonanza year with three chicks visible via telescope from our house in the box my Dad had put up.  The views for photography became more enticing, the adults seemingly a little less cautious.

There came a great day when they seem to have liberated themselves from what must have been a cramped prison.  The practiced flights and encountered their environment warily but with impatience rather than the nervous steps we've seen for a week or so before.

Very early one morning a day or so after the final group shot above was taken, my Mum came down stairs and looked out of the kitchen window.  A young Barn Owl sat atop her clothes line post - 3 m from the window, assessing access to the Bank Voles which live in our flower bed and feast on spent bird food.  It flew off.

That was the last that we saw of Barn Owls not just that year but in every subsequent year.

The winter of 2010/11 was not especially harsh but thick snow lay on the ground for a long time - the owls couldn't feed and began to starve.  7 corpses handed in to a local taxidermist had been found in barns - starved. The local and I suspect National Barn Owl population was decimated further last winter with similar prolong cold and snow cover.  The cleaning up of agriculture has meant fewer barns but also fewer rodents in barns where grain is no longer a food source.  A few Barn Owls survive in the surrounding area - I saw one this winter.  They will have less competition for food in summer so may breed sufficiently well to ensure Barn Owls return - but as I write there have been no Barn Owls seen round here for two summers.

Note - all the photos of the owl box were taken from the patio of the house via a digiscope arrangement at a range of about 300mm onto an iphone.  There should be no disturbance of Barn Owls at nest - they are protected.


BUT all has not been lost - Nature abhors a vacuum - as they say and imagine my surprise in Summer 2011 when this appeared in my scope view:

 Tawny Owls have had greater success resisting winter as they hunt mainly in wooded areas where snow doesn't lay as thick or for as long.  Their calling is a constant evening joy to me when I arrive home in the dark hours.  So much so - and I admit this with some trepidation - I can now call Tawny Owls in, mimicking the male call.

The chick which appeared was another great joy in teh summer of 2011.  The population is doing well enough - at one point last summer I counted 5 owls competing for each others attention/territory in an area less than a km square.


This spring the box has been taken up (rather early) by kestrel's and they are feeding chicks now.  They have moved up from small boxes and their bigger broods (4-5chicks) in recent years suggest they deserve it.


As one door closes another opens and the past two years have seen easy viewing two  different species which were unknown to me in my youthful birdwatching.

Immediately in the field next to the garden sightings of Little Owls have increased.  These are gorgeous birds which love the dense thickets of hawthorn around the place.  Two years ago I scanned the leafless bushes on a chilly but bright frosty morning only to find three little owls (in different bushes) warming up in the weak sunshine.

They frequently dive out of hedgerows as we walk now, the signature low flight, the deceptively long wings, and most tellingly the accompanying song bird demonstration are all give aways.  They haven't - as far as one can tell - taken up the offer of a nest box, but nesting opportunities are legion.  Most often the view one gets is as below - peering with curious and indignant eyes at one's presence.

Happily the grace of the Barn Owl has been replaced by another great aerial dancer, the Short Eared Owl locally - though a few miles away - they roost in numbers.  One late afternoon in January on the Idle Bank I counted six owls out hunting and has Winter has turned to Spring they have endured. I saw last week.  These are joyful birds with little which troubles them even the idea of man in the field.  Occasionally they come too close to photograph and when one is sat in a car they seem oblivious to the camera.  If preoccupied in territorial disputes they do aerobatics in front of amazed and joyful birdwatchers.  And when they are distant enough to photograph they emerge as birds of great beauty.

I should end with one last entry in this catalogue: my one encounter with a Long Eared Owl.  It was down in Dorset some years ago - bird was very showy in the mid morning sun.  We tracked it photographed it - enjoyed it.  Next day it was found dead - we assumed of starvation - its sunlit antics we thought were a sign of desperation for food.  A taxidermist revealed the horrible truth.  It had been shot with a rifle - probably by rabbit hunters armed with lamps.  Someone in the glare of lamp saw this fabulous bird and decided - for a laugh, for larks, for God knows what reason to shoot it.