Earlier in November Chris Sperring led his third owl walk of the season here at The Community Farm. The group were treated to the wonderful tawny and barn owl cries and sightings but were also treated to a 'little' surpise as the walk went on...
The third Owl Prowl of the season started with a little light rain which soon cleared but, sadly, cloud cover was still at 100% so my normal stargazing activity couldn't take place. However, straight away we could hear tawny owls in the background, particularly from the Chew Valley Lake area, and also towards the northwest in the general direction of the airport.
We walked out to the open areas where we heard a male tawny owl calling from the northern fields. This tawny we would catch up with a little later, as in this area we were actually searching for barn owls, and sure enough we did hear one, once again on the Chew Valley Lake side of The Farm.
We then caught up with the tawny owl that had been calling near The Community Farm fields, and were treated to that male tawny owl giving us a superb flyby as well as close calling. This owl was obviously defending his area but he was also (hopefully!) out there doing his busy work on this organic farm as chief pest control, working his talons across the fresh produce areas.
Tawny owls can feed on rats, bank voles and of course wood mice and will take the occasional grey squirrel as well, Tawny owls nested at the farm two years ago and fledged two owlets and indeed this male started off its activity very close to the nesting box so I'm very hopeful that this nest box will be full again in 2025.
At all of these owl walks we always listen out for little owls, and so far in the whole history of doing these walks, which is about five or six years now for The Community Farm, we haven't picked up a little owl at all. Indeed, it was only two years ago that we recorded the first barn owl and so, it was with great delight that as we moved across the north easterly edge of the farm, we actually heard not one, not two, but three little owls! This is a major result as, although the Chew Valley has a history of little owls, their numbers have declined dramatically throughout the whole country, and we've seen some of the biggest declines here in the South West. It's now probably the fastest declining owl species in the country (it's now fallen behind the barn owl), whereby it used to be the second most common.
One of the reasons you won't find it listed or specially protected is simply because it was actually introduced by Victorian gardeners. This was back in the 1880s and in the 1890s, and they introduced it as a form of pest control. One of the things that the Victorian gardeners loved growing was fruit. And one of the things they really didn't like on their fruit bushes during the spring, eating their blossom, was the bullfinch. And they thought the little owl would be the answer to that, which it wasn't. Little owls do feed on a wide variety of prey, mostly insect based, as well as wood mice, bank voles, the short-tailed vole, common shrew and the occasional small bird. It certainly does not target the bullfinch, however those Victorian gardeners gave us the little owl which rose in number throughout the whole of the 20th century. Following their decline, there's probably only a few pockets in the whole of Somerset where they're actually holding on, and of course in all the years that we've been doing the owl walks at The Farm we've never recorded them, but now we've got a new Owl on the block so to to speak!
This is really good news and real evidence that this organic farm, growing ever richer in biodiversity, is truly doing its job - nature recovery can happen!
By Chris Sperring
All our Owl Prowl walks are now fully booked for the rest of the season but join Chris for a one-day Birdsong Workshop on 22nd March.
