Monday 30 January 2017

Owls about



My daughter and wife reported seeing a Barn Owl near the south end of Naburn Sewage Works yesterday afternoon. This was quite exciting news as it was close to where I had assisted Yorkshire Water in putting a Barn Owl Box up on an old abandoned building on their land and adjacent to the rough grassy field. I bobbed down there as the light began to fail and sure enough at 5.05pm the ghostly shape of a hunting Barn Owl floated in to view. It didn’t appear to come from the box, but it may have got out without me seeing it. The bird did a circuit of the field and I watched with my bins from the footpath. Amazingly, it flew straight towards me, coming so close that I couldn’t focus my bins. I lowered them to look and in doing so revealed my face, which startled the owl, which did a quick u turn and went back the way it came. It is always a privilege to see one of these beautiful birds and I am delighted there is one around here that might just use that box. On the walk back, a couple of Tawny Owls were hooting loudly from the large Willows by the river and the usual Grey Partridge was creaking away in the fields near Bridge Farm.

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