In one pair of hands, the most beautiful thing you will ever see; in another pair, the most ugly. And they were both barn owls. One was an adult, the other was very young. The adult female was a babe; her offspring was a chick. A scaly reptilian face peering out of a ball of fluff: as if some one had started out to make a bird but had given up in despair.
A grown-up barn owl is stunning, whether floating on pale wings at a distance or, as now, in the hand, with the chestnut, intricately spangled mantle available for close inspection. The wing is a thing of perfection: the wing of the chick of a horrid, half-formed thing with flight feathers sprouting like ribs. It was 30 days old, and within weeks would be as beautiful as its parents.
They had been tanked from a barn owl box at my neighbours: and I was with a team of licensed ringers from the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. Barn owls are a declining species, and one of the reasons for the decline is the absence of places to nest. There are fewer hollow trees available since the holocaust of the elms, and many barns, which make a good second choice, have been sealed or converted into houses. So what’s an owl to do?
The trust is putting up barn owl boxes in likely locations. The current Suffolk population is about 100 pairs from a national total of about 4,000. But it���s rising, because the scheme is already working. The trust has put up 200 boxes in the past 12 months, and a staggering 60 of them have sheltered breeding barn owls.
Naturally, I have a box myself. The team examined it, from the summit of a precarious ladder and found unmistakable traces of barn owls. There was also an occupant, a live stock dove, a bird that is actually in more danger than the barn owls, though rather less spectacular. There is also a barn owl roost in one of my outbuildings: I was recommended to get a box up in there as well. Watch this space.
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Barn owls are on the brink of a comeback here in Suffolk. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: conservation works.
This country is wilder than we think. So there I was, leading a horse over a bridge: for there is a small and rather quirky river that runs across my place. Out of the tail of my eye, I saw something down in the water: a four-foot strip of ribbon? Surely not. A length of hose pipe? God no, it’s a bloody snake.
I put the horse in the right place, and returned for the other one, pausing to examine the snake. A grass snake, making his way downstream, for they are accomplished swimmers; they can also submerge for an hour when they need to hide. Grass snakes are unapologetically big: a female can exceed six feet. This one had shifted slightly, assuming a more dynamic, snaky posture, but was holding itself quite still. A horse called out piteously: so I did the decent thing and completed the task of moving horses.
And of course, when I returned to the bridge, the snake was gone: a small but extraordinary extrusion of wildness into an ordinary sort of day. Grass snakes are scarce, and seldom seen, being great lurkers. They are harmless, and nonpoisonous: but what’s that got to do with anything? No one can view a living snake without a certain frisson: a touch of the wild, all the better for being ever-so-slightly scary.