Bats & badgers & owls! Oh, my! :Sandsend

Weekend Reflections

Took this one on our last night in the north east. This is Whitby Harbour from the swing bridge just as the light is fading. We all had a pizza before having a drink at a quayside pub. Believe it or not a bat flitted out into the lamp light just as I was drinking my cider. It just looked like somebody was dangling it on a string like in the old black and white Dracula movies. But it was a real bat and there was no string or dangler to be seen. We drove back to the Raithwaite estate for the last time. During the day pheasants would often leap out of the lane side greenery, forcing us to drive very slow for fear of hitting one. It was quite dark by this hour. As we drove along the final bit of lane to Home Farm, Phil pointed out something crossing the road in front of us. It was a large badger going about its business. It shuffled across in front of us and trundled up a dark alley, its silvered fur disappearing into the blackness like a ghost. Just as we reached Home Farm and opened the car doors a male Tawny Owl hooted. Almost immediately another male Tawny hooted an answer to the challenge from a different angle. Debbie started hooting along with them.
"You're making them think there are loads of male intruders," I ventured.
"How do you do the female call then?" Debbie asked.
"You can't. It's too high pitched. Sort of ewick-ewick." I made no attempt to sound like an owl.

Owl on the prowl

Our Tawny Owls are back. So far we've only heard one calling out in the dark; no male call - just the female. Before last winter's chainsaw madness you could hear both members of the family unit calling out to each other nearly every night. We reckon they were driven away by the constant disturbance and it's quite possible that their roost was either lopped off or felled. So this newcomer might not even be one of our much loved pair. I've heard it three or four times in the last week. Debbie heard the owl making quite a bit of noise at 5am in the morning. She looked out and saw the bird perched on the tv aerial on the roof of the farm house.
A few years ago a story was reported on about a man who used to imitate the Tawny Owl's call to get a neighborhood owl to call back to him. He kept up the habit for years until one day he discovered that there had never ever been an owl to call to. A neighbour had unknowingly been doing exactly the same thing all the time.
The picture above is from an ancient bird book of mine: Birds of Field and Forest - first printed in 1959. My copy is from 1964. Each bird has a full colour page plate painting opposite its description. The pictures are quite well done, though maybe a bit posed. Modern bird books tend to exaggerate the plumage colours and features, whereas these are duller and darker than life, though this could be down to the printing process and the original artworks might have been much brighter.
Tawny Owl picture © 1959 Paul Hamlyn Ltd and Artia.