barn owl
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Nature Notes
A Wild Unfurling. A wild unfurling of snow before Christmas jolts me back years. It provokes memories of working outdoors with horses & cows, in the 80s & 90s. Outdoor clothing wasn’t what it is now, and there were daily battles with chilblains on fingers, toes and thighs. But I’ve such a hankering for it […]
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Nature Notes
The Barn Owl and the Kestrel. One weekend morning, my phone rang, waking me at 7am. It was my husband, calling from our field-edge car park, on his way out and for a moment, I was bleary and afraid: something must’ve happened. “Look out the window!” he urged, and when I did, the barn owl […]
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Nature Notes
Freeze-Thaw In their deeply frozen state, the hill, fields and woods are a blanched, pale, brownish beige. Just before sunset, I spring two woodcock up from beside me. They rock away like dumpy wooden arks, their long, compass needle bills never wavering from the earth they quickly return to. Above me, the peregrine falcon flies […]
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Nature Notes
The Falcon and the Gleam. The rain and wind has flattened the strip of long, uncultivated grass on the awkward corner of an arable field. A vole runs from my feet. Last night, a barn owl hunted here. I only heard it’s urgent ppsshhhht as it quartered the field, but two days earlier, I glimpsed […]
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Nature Notes
Owling. I own neither a passport, nor a house, but last night, saw 4 species of owl within a mile of home. I heard the first before I saw it. The yelp of a little owl from the farm as I walked my youngest daughter home from school. We scan the outstretched limbs of the […]
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Nature Notes
The Stoat, the Vivarium and the White Owl. Summer holidays and my days are freer. There are some days when I can meander at will. A stoat pops up by the white barn, sees me and doubles back, like water through a u-bend. I wait. A triangular face appears; bright eyes, chocolate-drop nose, long cream […]