An Owl

JohnBoy

Well-Known Member


two or three times over the winter I saw a bird in our back yard. As I drive in the gate and swing around the lights sweep the back of the garden and I saw a relatively large white bird taking off. We have a lot of birds in our garden, get all sorts of species visiting. I dont know why, probably the lack of evil tillage farmers in the area or something :)

Anyway, this bird was different. I'd have an idea of a lot of them that call regularly and how they move and the way this bird took off and turned seemed quite distinctive, reminded me of the late late opening sequence of old.

Wife and kids thought I was mad. saw it again last night when walking down to the shed after tea, followed by a call I knew had to be an owl. half an hour later I had gone back up to the house and was returning when this time it flew towards me, into the light of the house and hardly 20 feet off the ground when he passed me. was a very cool experience seeing an owl in flight, but to see it's face lit up a couple of feet away was unreal. I must talk to the neighbours and see if anyone knows where it's nesting. They're a thing to be cherished and protected in my opinion. I hope whoever this owl's landlord is feels the same.
 
Have a few barn owls kicking about here,odd because we're a predominantly grass area,no crops for at least 15miles,must be food or they wouldn't be about.
 
Mice and rats is what they hunt mostly, if they are feeding young they will make 20 kills a night or more, there was a programme on recently where they put a tracker on an owl and watched his night moves, he or she followed the hedge grows in search of prey and when a kill was made it would near enough make a bee line for the nest to feed the young.
 


two or three times over the winter I saw a bird in our back yard. As I drive in the gate and swing around the lights sweep the back of the garden and I saw a relatively large white bird taking off. We have a lot of birds in our garden, get all sorts of species visiting. I dont know why, probably the lack of evil tillage farmers in the area or something :)

Anyway, this bird was different. I'd have an idea of a lot of them that call regularly and how they move and the way this bird took off and turned seemed quite distinctive, reminded me of the late late opening sequence of old.

Wife and kids thought I was mad. saw it again last night when walking down to the shed after tea, followed by a call I knew had to be an owl. half an hour later I had gone back up to the house and was returning when this time it flew towards me, into the light of the house and hardly 20 feet off the ground when he passed me. was a very cool experience seeing an owl in flight, but to see it's face lit up a couple of feet away was unreal. I must talk to the neighbours and see if anyone knows where it's nesting. They're a thing to be cherished and protected in my opinion. I hope whoever this owl's landlord is feels the same.

I remember when I was about 10/11 ish. was out helping mother with the pet lambs in the dark, walked up the yard and heard a 'ding' in one of the old sheds, with old junk in. was a big old open door, went to have a look inside with me torch and as I walked in a barn owl swooped out just above my head. Scared the bejeeeesus out of me!!
The 'ding' must have been it dropping a pellet onto some tin sheet.

Have quite a few owls about here, was a tawny screeching away behind the sheep shed the other night.

if you want some owls about then have a look at these boxes for them
https://www.theowlbox.co.uk/
a bit of a blatant plug for a neighbour, but there aint much he doesn't know about owls.
 
We had long eared owls , (which are the most common in Ireland) nesting in a groove a few years ago. Think they were back again last backend as I heard the chicks calling at dusk. I think the buzzards actually scared them away this time.
Was driving the other night and an owl flew across the road in front of me, fairly sure it was a barn owl. There is a yard across the road with shed that are ideal but I didn’t do any investigations yet.
 
Saw an owl once at our farm. Took me a minute to realise what it was, it was sitting on top of the wall in the back corner of the cattle shed, I went in to turn on the scrapers controlbox is on the back wall, got about 4 metres away and noticed this weird small seemingly fluffy flat-faced thing staring at me from the top of a 12ft wall. Scared the shit out of me till I copped it was an owl
 
Not great photos of a barn owl in the yard a couple of weeks ago.
 

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