A fleeting encounter with newly fledged little owls prompts Jane Adams to reflect on how easily a once-familiar presence is fading, due to subtle changes to trees, barns and fields
By June, the latest generation of little owls are getting their first look at the wider world – and that’s when they’re most on my mind.
For years, a pair nested in a hollowed-out oak that stands beside a whitewashed cob farmhouse on the outskirts of my village. On warm summer evenings, they would appear on the farmhouse chimney pots. Small, squat silhouettes against the fading sky, they’d inspect the fields below before one would drop low over the grass to a favourite fencepost.
They would also call out to each other. Anyone expecting the soft hoot of storybook owls would have been disappointed. Little owls have shrill, urgent cries – a sound that initially had me searching for a young fox pacing the fields rather than looking up.
Little owls aren’t native to Britain. Most were introduced in the late 19th century, but they have long since carved out a niche in our countryside, especially in southern counties like Dorset. They prefer meadows and grazing pastures, with nearby tumbledown barns and old trees hollowed by age. They eat insects, worms, small mammals and birds – and even the occasional amphibian when they get the chance.
Know your local oak
One morning in late June, I was walking past ‘their’ oak and happened to glance up. There, on a branch, were three fledged little owls glaring down at me, each with the same cross expression these owls seem to wear their entire lives. Their yellow eyes followed me, all three heads pivoting together as I passed below them.
I said hello, but didn’t stop: their first days out in the world are tough enough.
I never saw these particular youngsters again, though they must have found territories nearby later in the year. I often think about them at this time of year, and wonder how many villages still have little owls living unnoticed. Nowadays, do people even know which local oak has the perfect hollow high in its trunk? Is there still a barn nearby with holes for little owls to nest, not yet sealed or converted into a holiday home?
The number of little owls has declined rapidly in recent years. It happens without our noticing. An old tree gone, a barn repaired, a rough field corner sprayed bare … until one day the chimney pots stand empty.
But for now, some are still ther … so keep looking up and listening for that shrill, shrieking whhooooo!
By Jane Adams
