NATURE
A Ghostly Presence By Helen Baczkowska, Acting Conservation Manager at Norfolk Wildlife Trust
S
ometimes it is just a glimpse, a flicker in the dark, as pale as a possible ghost. Other times I am luckier and get a proper view of a barn owl, quartering a common on a damp morning, or following the line of a hedge between a farmyard and meadows at dusk. From a distance, the birds look pure white, especially from below, and the scientific name, Tyto alba, literally means ‘white owl’. Close up, the tops of the wings are pale gold, flecked with grey, and the longer wing feathers have brown bars. The face is heart-shaped, with large dark eyes and a curious, cat-like expression. My favourite view of a barn owl is when it sits on a branch or fence post and turns those liquid eyes towards me, so that, for just a moment, I can enjoy the beauty of the bird as it rests. Once or twice in my life, I have handled rescued barn owls and their size is surprising – flying in the half-light of morning or evening they look like a big bird, with long wings and a dumpy body. In fact, although they stand around a foot high,
Barn owl in flight, credit Julian Thomas
they weigh almost nothing and seem to be made entirely of feathers. That lightness and the feathers, which silence the sound of their flight, make the birds stealthy killers of voles, mice and the other small mammals that make up their diet. In spring and early summer, this prey will be carried back to a barn, a church or even a hole in a tree and fed to a handful of young. As they grow, the chicks, like a lot of owls, can be heard making wheezing and hissing
noises – some people say they sound like old men, but it reminds me of children, hiding in the hedge, saying “psst” in a stage-loud whisper. Once they are adults, the owls’ call is not a hoot, but an almost unearthly shriek; in some areas they are actually known as ‘screech owls’. That eerie call, the quiet flight and ghostly paleness led to a belief in the past that a barn owl was a portent of doom – a “prophet of woe and mischance,” wrote
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