A Tale of Two Owls

Gialova, Greece, Sometime in Early August 2011

I’m casting my mind back now to my first encounter with a wild Barn Owl. It was last year, and I was volunteering in Greece, enjoying the summer of my life.  It was July, or early August, and I was with three or four people, young volunteers like me, and we’d been cycling between point counts on our circuit of the Gialova Lagoon.  I’d met and photographed my first Kentish Plover, or “Alexandrinus,” pronounced with a Spanish accent,  as it was known among ourselves, and seen the little fluffy chicks wandering about on the cracked mud on their oversized feet. I remember Cleopatra’s Brimstone butterflies, and Scarce Swallowtails being almost everywhere, and the wide muddy lagoon, never blue like in the postcards, always with the sound of the ripples lapping on the shore. We made our way to a disused fish farm which stood beside the beach, and represented our last point count of the day. I’d already been informed that “Tyto,” as he was known in our quasi-scientific idiom, lived here, and Estela, the HOS Ornithologist, had shown me their wonderfully messy former nest site, in an apparently filthy room upstairs in the old fish farm, with owl pellets and droppings over the wall, and a filthy space in which the owls had raised their chicks a year or two before. But it had been a while since the owls had been seen, apparently, having been familiar to Estela in the months and years previously.  I was at the back of the crowd, scanning the rafters of the old fish farm, happy to have seen a little Athene noctua, which we all enjoyed, when a white shape appeared to drop from the rafters and fly across the hugely spacious room that would have been the main floor of the factory.  It paused on one of the crossbars which held up the roof and, in what was intended as a combination of a whisper and a shout, and futilely, I tried to call back my colleagues to see the owl. White, a little ghostly, utterly silent, and incredibly beautiful, the owl appeared to hear me and was off through a space in the wall.

A couple of days later, on a cool morning before the Mediterranean heat began to beat down, I returned to the old fish farm, a little against the advice of others who warned it could be dangerous. I should stress looking for owls in abandoned buildings in the small hours of the morning, and alone, is not something this blogger recommends. I sat down on a pile of rubble in the main body of the building and waited for “Tyto.” It was about six in the morning, the same time we carried out our bird monitoring at the lagoon. It will come as no surprise, that, any paranoia about homeless drug dealers chasing conservation volunteers out of the fish farm in the morning quickly abated, and I fell asleep.
I woke up what must have been about an hour later and already the sun was high and the air was beginning to get quite warm. I rose to my feet and looked about. “Tyto” was only a few metres away, and when he saw me move, he took to the wing in a second, but, perhaps curious about me, he alighted in the far corner of the room. I approached him a little, inching forward, and I raised my camera and extended my lens. In the dim light of the fish factory, I needed a steady hand, but I managed to take a single record shot before he moved off, his broad, white wings carrying him silently through his gap between wall and ceiling, and away out of sight.

Tyto alba, Gialova Lagoon, August 2011

4^th June 2012

I’d been trying to shake an inexplicable feeling of immense mild awkwardness and irritation all day. It was the evening, and I decided to throw my bike around Pages Wood, part of the Millennium Community woodlands project, operated by the Forestry Commission, and set between Upminster and Harold Wood, beside the busy Southend Arterial Road.  Young trees have been planted on former farmland, with a few old trees dominating as standards. The river Ingrebourne flows through it, lined with just such oak standards. As it reaches the side of the dual carriageway, a small network of hedges with a few standards spreads out, a bridge crosses the Ingrebourne and the path continues across meadows in which Horses are periodically grazed.  I rode laps of the track, I wasn’t birding, merely having a bit of a ride to blow out the cobwebs on a pleasant, sunny evening. I paused beside the river to watch the swallows picking off insects from the little living clouds which danced above it. I saw a couple of green woodpeckers, pecking about in the grass, the flowery meadows which line what will one day become, when the trees are more mature, the woodland rides, and I heard the Jackdaws alarm calling each time a dog passed them.

The light had begun to fade and I decided to cross the Ingrebourne and head back up the A127 to get home. As I did so, between the mature oak trees, I saw a white bird, very briefly, and I wondered what it was. The view was brief, it could even have been a white pigeon, but I moved forward a little to get a closer look. As the bird reappeared, its identity became clear. It had long, broad wings, was bigger than a pigeon, and its shape was unmistakeable. The flat faces of owls, honed by evolution to channel sound to their remarkable ears, give them a unique appearance in profile. It was a white lady, of medieval superstition, a barn owl, white and angelic against the fading light! I moved on a little, as the owl flew out of sight. I positioned myself on the path with a good vista of the dark green oaks and the buttercup infested meadow, and waited. I didn’t have to wait long. The owl reappeared, making another hunting pass low in front of the trees, eyes fixed on the ground, in search of the mice and voles on which they feed. She rounded a small Hawthorn on the meadow and, for a moment, was flying straight at me. She turned and I attempted to reel off a couple of shots with the DSLR, but as I raised it she saw me and turned tail, drifting silently over the trees and away to the East, where more woodland stood, before the trees gave way to urban parkland and sprawl. She was gone, and I had only blurry long shots on the camera, but she was beautiful, and my first British barn owl.  The experience was almost spiritual, the barn owl, a childhood favourite and ghostly beauty, floating over these woods and meadows on the cusp of London’s metropolis, something so wild, so beautiful, so revered and feared over the years for her unique colour and crepuscular habits. It was with a much less heavy heart that I made my way home in the fading light of a beautiful June evening, across the community woodland past the dog walkers, and the rubbish strewn bridge over the Arterial Road.

Barn Owl, Pages Wood, near Upminster, Essex, England, June 4th 2012

Wild flower Meadows at Pages Wood.

The Mature Trees into which she disappeared, Pages Wood.

Hornchurch Country Park and the Ingrebourne Valley

On Tuesday afternoon, my good friend Tom and I made a trip down to the green part of the Ingrebourne Valley, stretching from Upminster Bridge, and accessed by the Hornchurch AFC football stadium, down almost as far as Rainham, where our local river flows into the Thames estuary. We had chosen a bright sunny day and there were plenty of smart Banded Demoiselles about. These stunning insects, which have a bright, metallic lustre about their bodies, and, in the male, deep blue bands on their clear wings, are specialists in these fast flowing streams.   Swifts and house martins were overhead, circling in the clear blue sky. House Martins, it is now understood, spend a lot of their time feeding at such altitudes to be outside of our visual range, and these were climbing higher, ascending to height and disappearing from view.

We heard the first cuckoo of the day not long after joining the Ingrebourne valley, and outside of Hornchurch Country park “proper.” Cuckoos populations are, like those of many long range migrant birds and farmland specialists, are declining, and are something of a conservation priority. That was far from apparent in the Ingrebourne Valley. A short while later one of these elusive birds flew overhead.  The presence of relatively scarce and declining farmland birds was remarkable that day, but more of those to come.

Banded Demoiselle at the Ingrebourne Valley

Passing the inevitable flocks of Carrion Crow, Woodpigeon and Feral Pigeon, we wandered along the river, glancing down into it in the hope of catching sight of one of the fabled Barbel, large fish which spend their lives fighting against the strong current, but these, unfortunately, proved elusive.  Orange tip and Small White butterflies were on the wing, and there were chaffinches and robins singing. Arriving at the lookout point over the Ingrebourne valley,  a little charm of goldfinches flew over us. A few benches here provide excellent views over an area where the Ingrebourne has been allowed to widen and form reed beds, with green phragmites spikes rising out of the brown remnants of last year’s growth, and spread over flat areas of mud and shallow water.  To our surprise a migratory wader, somewhat scarce in the South East, was feeding in the shallows. It was a small plover, and the bright yellow eye ring which gave it away as a little ringed plover was clearly apparent. It was happy to pose for a couple of ID able photos. We sat for a while and admired the view, a juvenile Grey Heron, a typical denizen of wetlands all over Europe, lazily flew past, and a few moments later, a Little Egret flew off in the same direction.  There was a mute swan further upriver, and a small flock of mallards also contained a pair of Gadwall.  A couple of Lapwing, another bird not so common in the summer months around here arrived and began their display of aerial agility, whistling and rocking from side to side in flight flashing their bright white undersides and metallic green topsides. We watched the display with interest, what purpose it served was not clear, the affirmation of a pair bond, or perhaps to distract some unseen predator. It distracted us, and we watched the birds for a while until they moved on to another part of the river.

View from the viewpoint over the marshes.

Little Ringed Plover

We continued our walk to where second world war pill boxes, heavily armed positions built for a frantic, last ditch defence of Hornchurch Airfield in the event of a Nazi invasion, stood looking over the marsh.  Here RAF personnel would have maintained a vigil, even as the bombs fell on the airfield they were charged with protecting.      We went inside one of the concrete structures, and despite litter and graffiti it retained an eerie sense of history. In front of the pill box lay extensive marshes, beds of phragmites, but the view of these was now obscured by growing brambles.  Behind it, beside the asphalt path, stood a few Hawthorns, and a whitethroat sang from the upper branches of one of these.  The May Blossom has now begun to fade, but summer wildflowers were abundant and a Small Heath butterfly fluttered between them. This little brown Satyrid butterfly is often a species of very old stretches of grassland and I believe this was my first one at Hornchurch Country Park. 

One of the wartime pill boxes at Hornchurch Country Park. Everything looks a bit more evocative in black and white.

As the path snaked around towards Albyn’s Farm Lake, we heard another cuckoo singing in the trees. Chiffchaffs and great tits also sang, and we caught site of a bird which might have been a blackcap. The lake itself revealed little of interest so we proceeded towards Ingrebourne hill, a huge, grassed over pile of rubbish now designated as a nature reserve. We passed a field which was alive with wildflowers, and saw a Kestrel mobbed and harassed by a whole flock of starlings, behaviour which, of course, they abandoned as soon as I got my camera out. The starlings assembled on gates and fences, clearing the path as we passed, returning to it once it was behind us. 

Meadow Habitat at Ingrebourne Hill

It was here we got another pleasant surprise. There are Skylarks here, we must have seen ten or so individuals. One sang from a fence upright and allowed us close enough to take photos. It was a handsome, streaky brown bird, about the size of a starling, with a small but obvious crest on its head. Another two hung in the sky, hovering, on their song flights. Loud, trilling and whistling skylark techno filled the air. Birds appeared out of the grass as we approached and we stuck to the path for fear of disturbing, or stepping on, any of the nests on the ground.    Skylarks, and their song once almost ubiquitous in the English countryside are another of these species whose populations are now in virtual freefall. Changing, more intensified farming practices, and earlier harvests are destroying their nests, although they show signs of benefiting from Agricultural Stewardship Schemes.  Joe Public and his dogs are also something of a menace, as the animals, left off leads to run in the grass, will often sniff out and devour the eggs and chicks of skylarks, while their owners are all too often oblivious. Plenty of dogs and their humans use Ingrebourne hill, although some of the neighbouring fields flourish with wild vegetation and have access restricted by wire fences.   Public access has its drawbacks from a conservation point of view.

Very vocal, and confiding, Skylark at Ingrebourne Hill.

We walked back the way we came, and saw a Red Fox at the bottom of ingrebourne hill, disappearing into the scrub. Making our way back we paused at Albyns Farm Lake to watch several flotillas of Canada Geese and their Goslings, each family with chicks of a slightly different size.  Their parents lowered their heads and hissed each time one of the solitary, non-breeding adults came close.  A great crested grebe hung about close to the island in the middle, and there were a few coots, moorhens and Tufted Ducks about. Wildfowl scattered as a couple of idiots encouraged their hounds to take a swim in the water, but thankfully the dogs seemed uninterested in any of the young birds. They do stir up the water and disturb the wildlife, why one would allow a predator like that to swim in a lake full of young birds is beyond me, but mercifully no harm seemed to be done, this time.

Canada Geese and Goslings on Albyn's Farm Lake.

As we passed the viewpoint again there was one more treat in store for us, as the hawk like shape of a cuckoo flew past us, giving us both good views. It is a sleek, slender grey bird, reminiscent of a Sparrowhawk with a long tail. The head is held slightly raised in flight, giving the body a curious shape, somewhat reminiscent of a banana.  They must be breeding here, parasitizing the nests perhaps of Dunnocks or Reed Warblers, both of which are found here, I assume, as they would be unlikely to be here in such numbers on passage.  I tend to think of the Cuckoo as a relatively scarce bird, worthy of a summer visit to Heybridge Basin or Lakenheath Fen to see, but here they were, at least three separate birds, in a strip of country bordered by suburban metropolitan Essex in all directions.  This unique strip of land deserves its SSSI and local nature reserve designation, and seems, almost every time, to host unexpected wildlife. Below is a rather gorgeous hairy caterpillar we found on the grass near Albyn's farm, any ideas?

Beautiful, but as yet unidentified caterpillar.