WINTER’S GHOSTS

BY ROB YARHAM (Volunteer Coordinator and Guide)

There’s something special about owls. Perhaps it’s because these beautiful birds of prey are usually fairly hard to see – many, but not all, owls are nocturnal, of course. But the short days and cold temperatures in winter can make it easier to see the ghostly, pale forms of a barn owl or a wintering short-eared owl.

Short-eared owls hunt during the day but they don’t breed in Sussex so we don’t get many chances to see this wonderful bird. They spend the spring and summer on the moorlands and rough grasslands of northern Britain, Scandinavia and Russia and migrate south for the winter. However, in especially cold winters, more short-eared owls head further south, and it’s at these times that they become easier to see here.

The short-eared owl is mottled, dirty-brown above and pale below and flies low over the ground, flapping its long, stiff wings as it hunts for voles and other small mammals. Occasionally, the owls will perch on fence posts and stare back at you, as if in surprise, with their large, round yellow eyes surrounded by heavy black ‘make-up’. You might be able to spot the two small, feathery tufts on top of its head which give the species its name but these aren’t the bird’s ears. All owls (and harriers) have twin ‘facial discs’, which give them their large, round faces, and these discs channel any sound into their ear cavities, which are positioned just to the sides of their eyes, so they can hear the faint rustle of prey moving in the grass below.

The shorter, colder days of winter also mean that the local barn owls, which usually hunt at night, are forced to hunt in the daylight hours. Mid-to late afternoons are a good time to look for them on cold days as they hunt over farmland and grassland. They’re about the same size as the short-eared owl but they appear whiter, with honey-brown above, and they have shorter, broader and more rounded wings.

But while barn owls will stay into the spring, the short-eared owls will soon be heading back north again to their breeding grounds in northern Britain and Europe. So this month is the perfect time to head to one of our RSPB reserves to see if you can spot one of these beautiful, ghostly birds while you still can.

Join us on one of our guided walks this month to see if we can find some owls and other winter visitors, including birds of prey, waders and wildfowl, before they leave in the spring: https://events.rspb.org.uk/paghamharbour or call 01243 641508.