100s of Red Kites but nothing else

A little tale re Barn owls-I live in a really rural area with many really old barns & the population of Barn Owls is healthy-not statistically driven but just what I see👍🏻. Every now & then on the cusp of dusk I see a Barn Owl quartering the meadow at the bottom of my garden & the other full moon night it was goose bump territory. I walked to the bottom of the garden to see if I could see any activity, within a few minutes or so I saw a Barn Owl flying low in the light of the full moon, it was beautiful & very very spooky in a positive way. The name screech Owl we know but Ghost Owl is another that fitted the silent glide over the meadow with the moon being shone on its back I was in awe of that beauty, I’m expecting it’ll be my once in a lifetime marvel.

I remember in the early 90s we were visiting our in laws in Berkshire and my father in law called us into the garden to see a pair of red kites circling over head. We had never seen one before, over a few years we saw more of them from their garden. Now, as others have said they are a very common site overhead when we are travelling in that area. A true success story. Never seen any near us in Devon though. 

As kids we would very often go up to the barn and look for owl pellets, easy to find in those days. Then we would spend ages pulling them apart to sort out the bones, if we found a mouse skull we had struck gold. Easy to occupy kids in those days. But remember my aunt complaining if we forgot to cover the kitchen table with newspaper first!

 Rocky I will swap my Tawny Owl for your Barn Owl. Our tawny sits in our Rowan tree calling to it's mates for hours at a time. Even with double glazing he manages to make his presence heard. Love Owl's to bit's, but he is a noisy s*d.

Mmmmm, I’ll need to think about that. . .I’m done thinking s*d off😂😂. It wasn’t a hard decision ADP I’ve never suffered your close encounter but we regularly hear the Tawneys having a 4 way hoot off/toowit toowoo off, but it’s from far enough away to not be an issue. If it’s any help there are folk out there who’d love to be that close to nature🤷🏻‍♂️

Yes wildlife is abundant here, but he is a noisy so and so. The female Sparrow Hawk uses the same tree to select her poor victim from, which more often than not is a Goldfinch.

I’m afraid the smaller birds are the shrews & mice of the Avian world🤷🏻‍♂️