Look out for owls
A loud, prolonged chorus of alarm notes – the repetitive chip-chip-chip of Blackbirds, high calls of tits and Goldcrests, the pink of a Chaffinch – might draw your attention to a mixed flock flitting around a particular tree, perhaps a conifer or an evergreen oak, a patch of dense ivy, or a thicket of holly.
The birds flit away, call, and return to the same spot, obviously not so alarmed that they fly off, but certainly agitated, almost irritated. This may be a group of birds ‘mobbing’ an owl, discovered by day at its roost.
A Tawny Owl will hide up, close to a tree trunk or out in a dense spray of foliage, hoping to remain undiscovered so it can sleep away the day. It gives its presence away by white droppings underneath, which you can look for even if there are no mobbing birds. But it ejects its pellets – lumps of indigestible material such as bones, fur and feathers – more or less at random, so they are of little help.
In dense thickets such as willow, high in pines, or even in old hedgerows, you could be really lucky and discover a Long-eared Owl or two
(or more). These also have white droppings (could these not have evolved to be less conspicuous?); however, they also cough up their pellets while at the roost, so there will be a scattering of grey thumb-sized lumps on the ground too. Barn Owl does the same, but often roosts in a building or box, or a big tree cavity.
Short-eared Owl roosts on or near the ground, often in a bushy hollow in downland or near a marsh, so aren’t usually mobbed in the same way by the smaller birds.
Whatever you find, be very careful: keep still, keep quiet, and try not to scare the owl away. It is much better for the owl, and you can return to enjoy it on another day, too. Rob
Hume