Little Owls on St George’s Day

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By Trebol-a (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
By Trebol-a (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Henry and I were in Yorkshire yesterday, but as he drove me home (what a clever Hen Harrier he is) we passed Lilford in the Nene Valley and I realised that today was an anniversary.

Little Owls were successfully introduced into the UK at Lilford Hall by the 4th Baron Lilford in 1889; on St George’s Day, his gamekeeper found a little owl on a nest.

The Little Owl is an introduced species in the UK but a common species just the other side of the English Channel. And so it is an introduced species, but it doesn’t raise the same alarms as the Pheasant or Ring-necked Parakeet, for example, because the ‘our’ wildlife evolved in the presence of Little Owls.

Talking of Pheasants, Henry was puzzled while we were in Yorkshire by the huge number of dead Pheasants on the road. We played the game of calling out ‘Dead Pheasant’ each time we pass one for a while and there were just loads and loads. Henry couldn’t understand it at all.

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