Although I help and we wouldn't have successful broods this late in the year without some support, I am sometimes a hindrance. This was plainly evident when the owlets first fledged and I disturbed one of them from the straw early one morning. It flew, clueless, from the farm and plonked itself in a small ditch where it waited, exposed and vulnerable. I took a detour to work to drive along past the farm and look out for it, but this only added to my concerns. There were at least three buzzards hunting the roadside, buzzards that could easily take out a young, naive barn owl. I could only hope that it headed back to the farm and the safety of the straw promptly and that no harm came to it and I resolved that for now, my morning walk needed to take a route away from the straw stack.
The next hazard was some testing autumn winds in the form of Storm Babet, Ciaran and Debi. These literally hit the farm in quick succession when the owlets were still honing their flying skills. I walked down to find gale force winds tunnelling through the farm gate and owlets grounded all across the grass field. They couldn't fly even if they tried and I just hoped they had the sense to hop back to the straw and find shelter. The food I provided meant that they didn't have to hunt in the worst of the weather and could practice their skills in more suitable conditions. I knew that if they got wet they would be vulnerable to predators. Max had shown me that we had foxes close. He has a special drill for foxes which involves nose down, tail up and some very deep barks. Because of his behaviour, I realised that while the owlets were at their most naive, foxes were prowling. Thankfully I never found any trace that any had been predated but this added to my concerns.
Over time the owlets became more streetwise, they stayed in the straw as they saw me approach both in the mornings and at feeding time. They still hissed incessantly for food and the fly pasts were incredible but I was reassured that they had found safe and cosy nooks in the straw stack itself. Yet on a farm there are always changes so you can imagine my consternation when one morning a lorry approached and the fork lift began to load straw onto it. The straw's true purpose isn't to house my barn owls but to provide bedding for animals and it is transported right across the country. I watched a distance away, looking for owlets flying out and worrying that some of them may even be loaded up onto the lorry between bales if they sat tight. But the forklift just took single bales from the outer edges and it seemed that the owlets were safe once more.
On my evening walk we saw owls in the torchlight as they began to hunt beyond the periphery of the farm itself. The new peril for them now was traffic. They would need to learn to negotiate the roads close by and although they weren't too busy I was dismayed to find out that the main trunk road closest to us as closed at night for a week. All main route traffic would be diverted within half a kilometre of the farm. I stood on the bridge and watched a stream of lights constantly negotiating our small fenland road. The owlets simply wouldn't stand a chance against so many vehicles. To try to help I fed early and generously in a bid to keep them close. I dreaded a journey out each morning fearing that I would find one of the youngsters crumpled on the roadside verge but it seems that this was a peril they have avoided, at least for now.
I know they won't all make this first winter with so much against them but each evening gives me hope for them and their precarious futures. Each morning I see them hunting from perches or along simple familiar routes and last night two flew to greet me and my torch found four little rotund faces peering at me from the uppermost bales. They will be with me now until January when I will worry again for them as these beautiful babies leave the farmyard for the final time.
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