Owls

Or wols, if you prefer.

Since I've been up here I have occasionally seen a barn owl trying to fly into the car late at night, but otherwise they've been pretty absent.

Which is a shame as I'm rather fond of them. We went to Leeds Castle a few years back and spent a day with the bloke who looks after the birds of prey there. This included feeding two tiny fluffy balls of baby owls pieces of rat until they were full. I said "how will we know when they are full". The bloke said "they'll fall over, fast asleep". And they did.

We then took a small friendly owl, Ozzy, for a walk - he would follow behind, bell jangling, much like my cat currently, and then swoop up onto our arms for his food, hop off, and so on, all around the castle grounds.

We then flew a kookaburra, vulture, eagle and god knows what else, before going hunting in the afternoon with a harris hawk (which caught a pheasant). The whole day was remarkably cheap, considering it was just the two of us with the birdman, and I heartily recommend it..

Anyway we have a tawny owl, or possibly two, in the trees down our lane - with the proper twit twoo thing going on, which is a good way to usher in autumn and the on-coming winter night sky.


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