Owl Sense Page 14

  Murray stands to attention, and we gaze. Perhaps in that moment we all recognise a connection with him: he too has come here from somewhere else, he is an outsider. He might be nervous. And so we must not frighten him. We must help him feel welcome, safe and trusting.

  Anita works with the children to bring them to an understanding of how we must be around Murray, how we must restrain our desire to pick him up: and so, taking turns, we are each allowed to wear the falconry glove that Murray has been trained to fly to. One by one each child is allowed contact with him. Faces light up, breath is held: each of us invites Murray to the glove. When he flies up there is pure delight, joy even, but also intense curiosity; a child face-to-face with an owl. The weight of him, his jittery, feathered presence so close.

  What do we notice about Murray? He is very small and light; he might be nervous.

  ‘Like me!’ Lee suddenly declares, smiling. ‘He is like me!’

  One by one the children have small epiphanies.

  ‘He’s not how I thought he would be,’ David says.

  And Murray with his irascible, odd little personality, becomes a coach to help us feel something about ourselves.

  ‘How can we help him to be relaxed?’

  ‘We can speak to him nicely!’

  ‘What can we say to Murray to help him to feel calm?’ Anita asks.

  ‘Good boy!’

  ‘Well done, Murray, you’re being brave.’

  ‘He can’t understand what we’re saying, but it makes us feel good to tell him,’ Anita says. ‘And he knows he’ll get a reward.’

  ‘He can hear my heartbeat. He knows how I’m feeling,’ Jessica says.

  ‘How can we get Murray to trust us?’ Anita asks.

  We play a game in which Murray has been trained to fetch a small cloth mouse and put it in a box. He gets a reward each time he does it right. When the children get too excited, Anita says: ‘We give the owl some time to recover when he’s overwhelmed.’

  Murray goes back in his box for a little while. We are learning about empathy. And making connection. We are coming to terms with vulnerability. Ours, and the owl’s. And the need for space, for kindness and understanding. Murray’s and ours. It occurs to me that we are doing work that reconnects us, that draws us close against the bleak backdrop of the city and allows us to regain intimacy with ourselves, with one another. And together with this non-human friend, we are creating community.

  After lunch Anita reads the children an owl story and for a while they loll on their cushions; listening, they go all dreamy, happy to absorb. The story is full of owl facts. The children are relaxed but attentive. Afterwards we quiz them on what they remember:

  ‘Owls need to turn their heads right round, so they have extra vertebrae, and extra blood vessels to help their head swivel.’

  Everyone has been paying attention. ‘Not all the way round!’

  ‘There’s a horror film where a girl does that – her head spins around.’

  ‘And she throws up everywhere!’

  ‘That’s a horrid film called The Exorcist. You haven’t seen it, have you?’

  ‘No, but I heard about it.’

  Later, when Murray’s shift is over and he is back in his box, it is home time. The delight and excitement are palpable. Suddenly the world is full of possibilities. The children go home ready for a new day when they will return and continue their work: they will begin to apply their new owl wisdom. Perhaps after all there is something to learn from a captive owl. He isn’t living the life his species would in the wild, but he’s been enriched in a different way, and has become an ambassador to help children learn empathy. Crossing the species border, the boundary line between ourselves and others, he has become a messenger to help us to think about equality and fairness. This little owl was teaching us consideration, to care for and respect community, and to be kind. In this, he’s a little apostle of the future.

  Asio otus

  LONG-EARED OWL

  Long-eared Owls roost secretively in willow thickets’

  RSPB diary

  They hide their secrets

  in willow baskets

  that my grandmother has woven,

  her fingers spindled,

  like the twiggy legs of owls

  under their brushed-fur feathers.

  Orange-yellow eyes catch light

  as they fall from the branches

  into a long, slow arc of flight

  oo – ooh – ooh they say

  oo – ooh – ooh as their wings

  beat deep and slow in the slow night.

  CAROLINE CARVER, ‘Secrets’ from Bone Fishing

  If you are out in the woods on a calm summer’s evening you might hear the soft ‘hoo’ of the secretive Long-eared Owl. At Woodwalton Fen, a Cambridgeshire nature reserve where only two breeding records of Long-eared Owls existed, one spring several males had been heard calling. It was decided that there were perhaps not enough nesting sites for them. Long-eared Owls do not like to build their own nests, preferring to take over those of other birds – usually crows and magpies, but sparrowhawks and wood pigeons also find their nests taken over, and even squirrel dreys have been found occupied. Between 1981 and 1996 a study was conducted to attract more Long-eared Owl pairs to come and breed. Willow baskets, used successfully as artificial nests on the Continent, were provided for the lonely males. At Woodwalton they saved a bit of money by using fruit-pickers’ baskets and dog baskets.

  The ready-made nests were positioned where the males had been heard calling, and it did the trick. The owls took to the nests, but there was a problem. The new nesting pairs, their eggs and chicks could not be easily observed due to the height of the baskets’ rims. Extendible poles with mirrors attached were used, but these owls are especially sensitive when sitting on eggs, so could not be approached or even seen with binoculars to check how they were doing. A solution was found: new baskets were specially designed and at just 15 centimetres high, now the long ears of the nesting birds could be seen peeping over the basket rims (not real ears, of course, just their curvaceous, horn-like plumes that sprout upward to startle predators). This is what I love about ornithology: it is often a kind of make-do-and-mend operation, with some trial and error, but certainly with its heart in the right place.

  The wicker basket nests were regularly checked, and any unwanted grey squirrel lodgers with an eye for a cosy drey were evicted. Each year there were anything between three and twenty-three nest baskets available for the owls – inevitably, some nest trees fell down or baskets blew away. In the first year, nine nests were recorded as used, and over the fifteen years of the scheme, seventy-seven nests were used. About 50 per cent of the hatchlings that were recorded fledged, which probably counts as a success. But still, this shy owl is scarce in Britain, and very, very difficult to see.

  Rock climbers have a rating system for the difficulty of an ascent: I think that if you do not know where the likely sites or roosts are, this system could also be a useful measure of owl watching. In climbing lore, depending on your skills and stamina you might progress from a Moderate to a D for Difficult. The Long-eared Owl might just be the hardest owl to see in Britain, so I think we could deploy the more severe categories here, such as Extremely Difficult (ED). The North Face of the Eiger in the Swiss Alps is ED2, for example. It was whilst searching for, and failing to find, the Long-eared Owl that I decided on this analogy.

  The other owls might be placed at different points on the spectrum: Tawnies (Mod) draw attention to themselves by their conversational night-time hooting and their quiet roadside perching. Little Owls (Diff) like cats can sometimes be drawn from a hedge with a summoning ‘kiss’, easy to produce especially if you own a cat. They both often live near to human habitations. Long-eared Owls (ED2), on the other hand, do not usually depend on human habitats – although as we’ve seen they can be tempted to inhabit artificial nesting sites, but even then, you might only see the tips of their ear tufts.

 
If you are very lucky you might catch a glimpse of this long-winged wraith as it emerges to hunt from deep within a copse of conifers, or you might witness it floating over the moors at dusk. If you know what to look for, you might notice the blunt, finely barred wing tips, the ochre-yellow tinge of the upper primary flight feathers, or see how its chocolate-and-cream patterning blends perfectly with the ground as it appears and disappears in the light and shadow of heath and moorland grasses. See how the pale belly is brown-streaked, the back finely speckled, the facial disc tinged with apricot, and how the long ear tufts can rise in alert as it alights on a post to perch. And those startling, jewel-like orange sapphire eyes as it turns to stare at you. All these would confirm its identification as the elusive Long-eared Owl. With its chameleon-like patterns in all shades of tree-bark brown, when motionless it can meld perfectly into any background of lichen-covered bark or dense foliage. Because it shares the woodland habitat of the Tawny and often feeds on the same prey, the two can come into conflict. The larger, bulkier Tawny is the Long-eared Owl’s most effective competitor, and this might be why the Long-eared thrives more successfully in new growth woodland such as thickly planted conifer plantations where the Tawny, who prefers to nest in the cavities of mature broadleaved trees, is less common.

  Being so elusive, this owl is often overlooked, and has not been as extensively studied as many other raptors. Consequently it is often under-recorded, but those who have looked into it, such as the Hawk and Owl Trust and the BTO, believe its numbers are declining with between 2,000 and 3,500 pairs resident in summertime Britain. The European population is much larger, with somewhere between 250,000 and 400,000 pairs, so only 1 per cent of the population lives in Britain.

  In autumn and winter, passage migrant owls can come from the Continent to feed in Britain, especially if food supplies (voles) have been in short supply. Some birds are known to come to the north-east coast of England from Scandinavia. The new arrivals can sometimes be seen flying in small groups and perching, tired and unwary, out in the open in broad daylight.

  When the Long-eared Owl is perched, its face often has an angular, cat-like appearance. This is partly because when alert it usually has its tall ear tufts held erect, especially when it is threatened or alarmed. These ear tufts are nearly always visible, the exceptions being when the bird is in flight and they are laid flat, or when it is relaxed and the tufts gently subside. The owl can dramatically change its face shape to reach a tense, camouflage posture and its jagged ear tufts, marbling and texture can mimic the roughened surface of a Corsican pine. In flight its wings can seem to mimic all the colours in the mottled weave of winter bent grass, bleached fescue and deer grass on the moor. When alarmed at its roost it can stiffen into a twig-like stance against the contours of a branch or tree trunk; at the approach of a perceived threat, it narrows its body and face and appears to solidify, relying on the blurring effects of its plumage to play tricks with the eye. Coupled with this, its silent, low, nervous flight often manifests as a shadow flitting across colours so close to its own it could be transparent. Its lack of vocalisations outside of breeding times make it almost impossible to locate by ear.

  Perhaps I could have waited for longer beside the communal winter roost in Norfolk, or searched harder for a random sighting over the edge of woodland on the quiet disused airfield in Dorset, or crept further into the dusk-misted pine woods of the Haldon Forest near my home in Devon. I could have visited Dave and Penny Green in East Sussex, who know more about Long-eared Owls in the south-east of England than almost anyone. But weary of stalking about on wet, cold and fruitless winter nights I no longer wanted to leave it to chance and followed a tip-off about an organised owl-viewing trip.

  ‘Serbia?’ Rick said.

  I could see him mentally picturing armed police, gangs and landmines.

  I was sure all that was out of date. ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘It’s been safe to go there for decades. I won’t be on my own. I’ll be in a group.’

  Jenny steeled herself for a week or two of no lifts to school, and concerned that she would get cold and wet on her walk to school I bought her an extra-strong umbrella and some new gloves. Benji gazed at me with wholehearted approval, affectionately picturing many Long-eared Owls flying about my ears; his response turned out to be prophetic.

  Having Benji at home with me while he recovered from his illness was turning out to be soothing for both of us. I could keep an eye on him, take him along with me or rehearse my plans with him. I frequently ran my ideas past him about where I was going to look next, and he was always positive. Perhaps he was still secretly hoping I would come home with an owlet under my coat for him to care for – even though it was not breeding season, and despite the fact that even Murray hadn’t changed my principles about keeping wild owls in captivity.

  The diagnosis of Non-Epileptic Seizure Disorder, or NEAD, Non-Epileptic Attack Disorder, had left Benji adrift. One round of treatment had taken the form of some carefully structured counselling, but after it was over, we were none the wiser. You could try anti-anxiety medication, or anti-depressants, the doctor suggested. But Benji did not seem depressed. Mentally he seemed OK, in spite of being disabled and out of work. Even though most of his friends had spread their wings and gone to college, he liked being at home, and had countered his isolation by developing a support network on social media. He joined a NEAD support group. He often chatted with his online gaming community who regularly offered support and company, even contacting us by phone when Benji dipped out because he’d unexpectedly collapsed in a seizure. For now, it didn’t feel right to drug him. We needed to find out more about what the triggers were for these collapses; we wanted to know what was at the bottom of it – more specifically, what was causing the seizures beyond what the doctors had labelled ‘psychological’ and ‘stress-related’ causes.

  I wanted to take him with me to see the Long-eared Owls, but this trip was very ambitious, and potentially unsafe for him. For now, we erred on the side of caution, and Benji would stay at home with Rick.

  As for finding the owls, I felt this time I was onto a winner. Tip-offs for birdwatchers sparkle as enticingly as nuggets in a gold pan, and this one was solid platinum. I knew it would be 100 per cent reliable because it came from People Who Knew. My birding friends, Ben Hoare at BBC Wildlife Magazine; ornithologist Mark Cocker, who had heard about it but not yet been to see; and above all, the Urban Birder, David Lindo. David was leading the expedition. Despite these solid credentials, the expedition was so unlikely sounding, the very last place I would have thought of to look. In previous years, Serbia had not had a good press, but David assured me that it was now quite safe to visit: the people were friendly and actively welcomed eco-tourism. David’s contact on the ground, Milan, was trying to promote wildlife and birdwatching trips to help boost the ailing economy and raise the profile of Serbian wildlife. We’d be doing good, and owl sightings were guaranteed. And not just one sighting, which would have been magical, and would have been sufficient. No, this would be a multiple-sighting spectacular, a communal roost, at close range, in the wild. He would be taking me to see the largest-known gathering of Long-eared Owls in the world. We might see hundreds at once, and the website blurb confidently announced: ‘If you don’t see an owl on this trip David will eat his binoculars … because it is officially the best place in the world to see Long-eared Owls.’

  Why the owls gather like this, I had yet to find out. Why would this normally solitary predator group come together in close proximity with a bunch of competitors? This trip was at the end of November; it would be just before the big freeze in Serbia. Were the owls gathering for warmth? Did communities form, with a pecking order or hierarchy, or were they arranged like penguins that pack together and regularly shuffle around so that each one gets a turn in the sheltered centre of the huddle? To find out, I would have to see this spectacular event for myself.

  I looked on the website of Serbia.com and it told me that one year up to 800 o
wls had been reported gathering in a single town. I was almost too excited to sit still. David’s website had close-up images of many owls seated together in their roosts. I pictured myself standing beneath owls arranged like bunches of fruit, like an owl-themed autumn festival. Although the trip was leaving in under a week and I was wary of the long journey, I knew it was one of those times you should just say yes. That space on the trip was me-shaped. But was Serbia really safe? I phoned my mum who is a veteran traveller to see what she thought. She always says exactly what she thinks and being my mum, I knew that she would object if she were worried for my safety.

  ‘Look, just go,’ she said.

  As soon as I was back at my desk, I clicked myself in, reserved my taxi, booked the train, sorted out the bus and plane tickets, and confirmed it excitedly to the family. I was going to the owl capital of the world, to their international headquarters, a town named Kikinda.

  ‘This is my Kikinda town,’ quipped David on his website. We had seen him on the telly, and he had recently set up the Britain’s Favourite Bird Referendum, in which we and many thousands of people voted. In one swoop, many young people had their first taste of the democratic process, and the robin had won its place as the UK’s favourite bird. It was closely followed by the Barn Owl, which had my vote. (David had been hoping for the blackbird.) He would be my reliable, knowledgeable guide, along with his Serbian brother-in-birds, Milan Ružić, who happened to be president of the Bird Protection and Study Society of Serbia.