Absence.

It is a full two weeks since I wrote my last blog. That week is thankfully beginning to fade from my memory but I am still travelling out grimacing at every discarded wrapper and craning my neck to identify anything crumpled in nearby fields. As the weather has settled the fatalities have lessened although I was sorry to see yet another road casualty along the A47 today. A dyke running perpendicular to such a busy road meant certain death for this owl that had quite obviously chosen to hunt its grassy banks.

The calming weather has lifted my mood but the owls are not bestowing upon me those fabulous winter fly pasts. We know some of my visitors have been lost to the terrible conditions and the remaining youngsters are now out there somewhere having to fend for themselves but this scenario is not all about despondency. Empty skies at dusk mean the owls can finally hunt for themselves. They will always revert to this if they can and I am heartened to see that times are once more a little easier for them. However the most obvious and very exciting reason for an absence of owls is that the females are now in the nest boxes. If they aren't sitting on eggs they are spending time establishing bonds with their mate. Not only are the females no longer flying but the males have become extra secretive. More than once I have walked into what seems to be a deserted farm yard only to hear a strangled screech from the shed eaves or a nearby tree. They will not compromise their mate's safety by returning to her whilst I am close. Their loyalty is humbling. Tonight two were sparring as I entered the farm. One waited by the house and the other left east nest box porch. I watched from the road side. The one from near the house returned to the combine shed, deftly diving through the door gap with a chick in its talons. This is early for barn owls but hardly surprising. Our owls laid their first egg in 2018 on the 4th march as the "Beast from the East" gave us its worst. This morning my neighbour sent a video of her owls mating. The signs are all there.

 I thought back to last year. We began the year with the adult male taking on both of our female birds and making really hard work for himself before tragedy struck and his original mate was found dead along the riverbank. By autumn we had two pairs on the farm again but this rivalry has been noted before. It would seem there is an uneasy truce between the two pairs who only tolerate each other because of the abundance of nest sites and the extra food. I anticipate a brood in the shed and in east nest box as we did last autumn. You saw it here first.

If my barn owls are staying out of sight the other raptors on the farm are making sure I am not too bereft. The kestrels greet me each morning. Sometimes there are two males and I wonder if they are my youngsters from last summer. On other occasions a male and female sit closely together on the ploughing watching me intently. These birds are easily spotted, a chestnut figurine atop of  the chocolate curled clay. They wait until I leave the field before flying deftly in and taking a chick. Midweek I returned from the field and disturbed one of the males. It flew to the second shed and tiny bits of day old chick down drifted to the ground. That afternoon as I rounded the shed a kestrel appeared from west nest box, popping out of the door like a cuckoo from a clock. It was still quite breezy and he chose to stay, poised and alert, never taking his eyes from me until I was a good distance away.

There are also the little owls who wait in the trees. You can easily mistake them for a branch as they sit motionless close to the tree trunk but if I walk closer I can see them, their indignant expression and disproportionate eyebrows. They seem to puff themselves up as if making up for their tiny stature. Their straw roost is still intact but I often catch them dart into the nest box we made for them at the end of the shed. One of them waits here for me each evening, standing to attention, a little sentinel on  guard through the night.

I miss my fly pasts, my avian acknowledgement, but I am now accustomed to their movements and their annual habits. I will continue to feed and continue to watch as avidly as ever for clues and signs that all is well.