Harvest.

 August is my quiet month. It tests my loyalty to the owls such is their absence and it would be easy to cease the feeding, the evening walk, the watching and the wondering. Yet I know the females are likely to be sitting and after such a poor start to the year I remain hopeful for some autumn broods for our resident birds.

As August continues I have begun to see more of the adult birds. They wait once more in the ash tree, they fly jauntily across the yard and I see them alight upon the shed when they think I have left.Sometimes I catch one flying in to the combine shed with food but not enough to convince me that we have owlets, not yet. Upon walking over to the beehives just before sunset one evening we also saw an owl leave the beehive box. There are copious amounts of splashings directly below its entrance which tells me that this box is regularly used, but by who?

What is more noticeable is the shrieking and vocalisations that continue long after I have delivered the food. Some of the owls are far from happy and I cannot work out if it is the adult birds getting cross with each other or whether the parents are still having trouble sending the first brood babies away. If it was up to me they could all stay on site and live as one big happy family but I know that isn't how it works. What the increased agitation does tell me is that owlets may be imminent and with the increased sightings I had become optimistic for some good news.

However harvest is now thankfully underway. The combines have come lumbering out to transform the fields. The owls have gone to roost having hunted the tall golden crops and awoken to shorn acres of farmland. These conditions make for rich pickings and so, for the last ten days, my owls have been quiet once again. It is reassuring that when they can hunt with ease that they ignore the food I bring and I have cut back drastically. Even the adult kestrel who had resumed his usual spot in the westernmost eaves fails to show and the little owls that glared at me and were even more reliable than the barn owls are nowhere to be seen. 

Yet just as I get used to an absence of owls once more the rain began midweek, halting the farmer's relentless hoarding and made for impossible hunting conditions. I fed as usual and just as I was leaving I caught sight of an owl flying towards the shed. I stood motionless, hidden by the hedge in the shadow of the straw.From here I could watch without risk of disturbance. I hadn't seen an owl flying this keenly since last winter and sure enough, it headed straight into the shed. I waited patiently. One, two, three, four times it flew out for food and returned to the shed. The fifth time it disappeared I darted silently out of the yard in a bid not to alert it to my presence. I am delighted to report that it seems August may be not so quiet after all.