Up close with a (dead) barn owl

One of the good things about people know I collect bones is that I have been lucky enough to havebeen given a lot of amazing things, like the leopard, otter and monk fish skulls. I've even had an 80 year old lady drive all the way up from England to give me some skulls !

About a week ago, I got an email from Mr. Greenhill, who I first met when I did a falconry course and he was the instructor, and who later came to a book talk I gave. He said he had found a barn owl by the side of the A9, and asked me if I would like it. I agreed, of course, and he came round to drop it off in the week ! Here's is what I found.

The amazing owl fight in photos

The one animal that I love to see in the wild is owls. They are very hard to see because they mostly fly at dusk and dawn, and there are a couple in the village, although I've never seen them. They are five different types of UK owls and they are, short-eared owl, barn owl, long-eared owl, tawny owl and the little owl. I have seen owls in zoos and in falconries many times but I have only seen them in the wild a few times.

Earlier this week dad was driving along a big moor after checking my pine marten trail camera, when he caught sight of something light flying at the edge of the moor on the side of a hill. Dad parked up and took out his binoculars and his camera with the biggest lens he had, and walked across the moor and down the hill to see what was happening. What he saw amazed him !

Strange bones #11: The buzzard skull that wasn't

On Tuesday me and Dad went on a walk in Suicides Graves wood. First of all we went down to the south-east corner where there is sometimes a herd of red deer, but although we saw lots of tracks, we didn't see any deer. Then we worked west through the wood, following red deer tracks and paths, and looking for bones.

We found a lot of bones, including something that was either a lamb or a red deer calf, but nothing worth bringing back. That was until we were at the edge of a clearing when dad spotted this at his feet. We searched around but couldn't find any other bones near it.

Big box of skulls #4: the bird skulls

This is the fourth week I've written about the cool box of bones I got as a present through the post. I've already written about the leopard skull, the boa constrictor skull and the monkey skulls, and this week this week I'm going to write about the bird skulls !

Finding owl pellets

Last week Dad and I went to explore some new woods a few miles from my house. They were so cool we went back exploring there today. We've seen tons of roe deer, loads of roe deer bones and skulls, a fox skull, a real fox, some hares and some grouse. But one of the best things we found looked like this:

My barn owl skull

I'm doing an extra post this week and next because I'm on half term this week. (The schools in my area get two weeks off this time of year because the children used to help gather the potatoes in the farms.)

This is one of the skulls that Michael the bone collector sent me (together with my amazing badger skull). A badger skull and an owl skull were two of the five skulls that I said I wanted to get this year so it's cool to get them.