Barn owl flying

Ros Patching from the Wildlife Trust looks at owls: where to see them, things you never knew about them and how to help them

When did you last see or hear an owl? A glimpse of pale barn owl wings caught in the headlights as you drive home at night, or that horror film favourite, the too-whoo of a tawny owl, making you quicken your pace across the pub car park in winter?

Like dolphins or meerkats, owls are not commonly seen by most of us, but we like to know they’re out there, and that they’re ok. Intensely beautiful and mysterious, they command the sky with their pinpoint-accurate eyesight, hearing and silent wings.

Owls are important top predators and plentiful owls mean that all is well with the health of the land. Their presence means there are enough sheltered places for them to roost, nest and raise young, plus lots of open countryside over which to hunt. Such places will be packed with small mammals, like mice and voles, which in turn eat lots of insects and slugs… and so on down the line.

There are five kinds of British owl: barn, tawny, little, long-eared and short-eared. Great news Cambridgeshire people! You can see them all within the county, and at the Great Fen (a wonderful habitat restoration project in the north of the county) you could glimpse all five.

Early risers or twilight walkers are more likely to witness a barn owl in flight but little owls and short-eared owls fly in the daytime. Once, when walking in the early evening, I mistook a tawny owl for the top of a rotten gate post, until it turned its head, slow and even, fixing me with enormous, dark eyes.

Across the wider countryside, owls’ favoured habitats are fragmented and under threat. The Wildlife Trust’s Living Landscapes work – making bigger, better and more joined up nature reserves – will help owls not just to hang on, but to flourish. The Wildlife Trust is focusing on Owls for this year’s Big Give Christmas Challenge appeal. For one week only, 5 – 9 December, whatever you donate online to the Trust’s work will be matched, at no cost to you, effectively doubling your donation towards helping owls and other wildlife across Cambridgeshire

Ros Patching

The Wildlife Trust, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire,Northamptonshire and Peterborough

wildlifebcnp.org/biggive.htm, 01954 713515