A wise old bird
YOUR article about owls (September 27) took me back to primary school in the early 1970s. My father found a dead barn owl, which we brought to school and the teacher created a lesson around the unfortunate bird. It made me think how sad it is that this sort of thing wouldn’t be possible now, due to rules and regulations. I believe my love of flora and fauna was imbued in me by my primary school, where nature walks were a weekly occurrence, we dissected owl pellets to find out what the birds had eaten and were introduced to a wide variety of wildlife from the dead specimens we found and shared in class. It also taught us that sometimes we need to manage wildlife to give all species a chance— something that would be useful today in the badgercull debates. I’m sure that if children were introduced to Nature in this way again, the next generation’s understanding of the natural world would be increased. James Rose, Worcestershire