What a great pleasure it was to meet Peter Findley and Sarah Fawcett of the East Kent Wildlife Group, on behalf of the British Trust for Ornithology.

I first met Peter when the school attended the East Kent Ploughing Match in early October. He was there promoting owl awareness; he’d brought a tame barn owl and the students all gathered around to say hello.

This last Wednesday, he came to Great Oaks to assess our suitability for a barn owl box, and also to give an owl talk to the students. Great Oaks is full of owls. Currently, a tawny visits the site and is sometimes heard hooting if we’re leaving late. And of course, there are the barn owls. Lots of them. They’ve been leaving their digestive pellets in the Forest School outhouse. And they are regularly seen; the last sighting was last Thursday.

After Peter and Sarah had inspected the Forest School, We all went to the classroom opposite the library for our talk, which was fascinating. We covered all of the main UK owls and their habits; we inspected photography from Peter’s recent owl ringing trips and dissected some barn owl pellets! Logan was particularly excited to discover a well-preserved vole’s skull! We also listened to the call of each specific owl and practiced identifying them.

At one point, the conversation diverged from barn owls to insects. A student instantly identified an insect larva in a photo; Peter noted that this was very impressive and said that correctly naming a larva is not easy. We spoke about Logan’s insect collecting around the school site.

All of the children told an owl story or two. Another Student had been scared to death on a recent camping trip when a barn owl started screeching just outside her tent!

All in all, this was a thoroughly enjoyable visit; Great Oaks will stay in touch with Peter, Sarah, and the East Kent Wildlife Group. We will also install a discreet trail camera to capture owl footage.

At the end of the visit, Peter and Sarah donated us a bag of barn owl pellets; they have found the perfect home in our art department! Here’s a photograph of our art teacher, claiming her prize! Please return to the blog soon; we hope to have some owl footage soon!