Owling

A Couple of Hours At Bodney & Hilborough – Sunday 19^th October 2014 

It was a mild and bright day but rather windy. It doesn’t look very promising this week that we’ll be able to get out very much if at all what with Jan working three days, a hospital appointment and a load of eBay items to dispatch. A sad time in many ways as it was time to say goodbye to most of my vestments. We don’t have much room to store them and it looks highly unlikely that I’ll ever be fit enough to take any active role in ministry again. Quite an emotive day really, some of the vestments had been made for me for special occasions but we all have to move on, a lot of memories of thousands of services I’ve taken over the years, especially the marriages, baptisms and funerals so I was really glad when Jan suggested that we go out for a couple of hours to see if we could spot any Barn Owls. I don’t think she realized how much today was affecting me.

We went up to the range gates at Bodney in Smugglers Road, where we had our coffee. There were plenty of Rooks and Jackdaws about with the odd Crow in the vicinity. I must admit I wasn’t too hopeful of seeing very much; many of the days we’ve spent birdwatching on windy days have not been the best days. However, it wasn’t very long before Jan spotted a Buzzard trying to dodge the Corvids and very shortly afterwards a Kestrel that was doing a tremendous job of hovering in the gusty wind. There was a few Magpies in the range itself and one Wren that was in a Bramble bush a few metres from us but it wouldn’t stay still enough for long enough to get any shots of it.

As we drove back up Smugglers Road there were a few groups of small birds moving with great difficulty in the wind. Then we came upon a Covey of about half a dozen Partridges that in their usual manner trotted up the road as if they had some important business to deal with. We stopped to allow them to find sanctuary in the adjacent field. We then carried onto Hilborough to be settled in time for dusk.

There were plenty of Wood Pigeons, Pheasants and Corvids about but then we saw a Raptor in the distance, it was quite a big bird but it wasn’t a Buzzard or Red Kite, it was too big for a Kestrel or Sparrowhawk but we couldn’t say for sure because it was too far off to identify positively but we thought it was probably a Goshawk.

The light was going now and Jan saw in the rear view mirror a Muntjac Deer cross the road behind us. We thought that we had missed the opportunity to see any Barn Owls and I must admit I had doubts that we would see any hunting in this wind.

Then there was a movement right in front of the car I had just seen in the mire a shape dive and go across the road. It certainly wasn’t big enough to be a Barn Owl and it wasn’t the right colour and I must admit I thought it was a Bat and that was the last we’d see of it but then I could just make out a shape on top of the telegraph pole right beside us. It certainly was Owl shaped but quite compact, it was a Little Owl. In fact when we first parked up in the location I had said to Jan that it would be perfect for Little Owls here, prophetic words indeed. It swooped from the pole into the field and then back up to the top of the pole, it was only about 5-10 yards from us but in the growing darkness it was impossible to get any shots of it. It then swooped down from the pole again and this was the last we saw of it.

Not a bad couple of hours to take my mind off another milestone moment in our lives.

Keep your eyes peeled and good spotting.