Living With Little Owls

Having a pair of Little Owls nesting outside his home gives David Tomlinson a lot of pleasure, as he explains here

Though it was over half a century ago, I still vividly remember my first encounter with a Little Owl. I was on holiday with my parents on the Costa Brava, then a much wilder place than it is today. An old farm track wound its way up into the hills from where we were staying, threading through acres of aromatic maquis – a miniature forest of Ilex, Myrtle, Oleander and Juniper.

Bee-eaters floated overhead, uttering their lovely soft calls, while Sardinian Warblers rattled, largely unseen, from the depths of the scrub.

An abandoned stone building, its roof collapsed and now filled with a luxuriant growth of figs, was a reminder that this land must once have been farmed. Suddenly and unexpectedly, a small brown bird flushed from its ruins, departing on rounded wings and in undulating flight. I watched it depart through binoculars (6x30, and ex-World War II), wondering what it was.

Back at base, I consulted my well-thumbed Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe. I had a suspicion that my bird was an owl, but what sort?

First of all I checked the distribution maps, ruling out Tengmalm’s and Short-eared Owls, and eventually coming down to a choice of Little or Scops. It was reading the text that clinched the ID. “Often seen in daylight”, the Field Guide stated for Little Owl, adding “flight low and rapid, deeply undulating”. Until then, the only owls I had seen were Tawny and Barn, so adding a third to my rapidly growing life-list was really exciting.