Tyto Alba

Among the regular animal inhabitants hereabouts is a family of barn-owls who nest in one of the trees by the wall next to the cottage. Ideally situated for viewing this year's chicks, and if the technology permits we may yet have a News owl-cam gracing this blog. Looking out over the fields across the valley towards Prospect I can often see one of the adult birds flying back with food in its beak, swooping past the big windows in a great curve as it heads for the tree. But what I saw last night suprassed all expectations. Walking around the front of the house, mid-evening, I saw one of the owls flying about fifteen feet above the ground, just below the lowermost branches of the trees, plumb straight along the road. For a moment its wings seemed to fill the breadth of the highway - then, in a blur of brown and white, it was gone.