A brighter future for barn owls

摘要

Without warning, my big sister dragged me down below the top of the hedge and motioned for meto stay still. Bemused, I crouched there for a few moments before she hauled me back up by theshoulder. There, just a metre away - that heart-shaped face I knew so well turned towards mine - was a barn owl. Gazed upon countless times in my bird books, but never seen in the flesh, it was suddenly before me: magic made real. Helen had seen it follow the edge of the field; now it was floating away on angel wings.It was my first barn owl, in the village where I grew up on the hills above Somerset's peat moors. I never saw another one quartering that field along Chestnut Lane, though I spent many evenings looking. But it was the start of a lifelong love affair with this icon of open countryside.