Eye to eye with an owl

Monday 1 June 2020

Dave Steel

David Steel has been recording birds – and other wildlife on the Manchester Mosslands ever since he was a child. Dave knows every nook and cranny, and he sees the area as his own. Dave often leads guided walks on the mosses and his blogs capture his

Tawny owl by Dave Steel

Once more I will try to join in with the Lancashire Wildlife Trust with its 30 days wild in June…let’s see how much I can do and how much you can take!

If I was to sum up being out there, whether looking out from the window at home or enjoying that new found freedom (of sorts) to roam in this now altered C19 World, I would, in order to appreciate what wildlife we may observe, refer to a sign encountered at Railway Crossings

Do you know our Moss hosts the first totally steam locomotive passenger carrying railway in the WORLD? Yes, and by now, a multitude of us will now acknowledge how important the WHOLE of our Mosslands Greenbelt is) we do have such signage…

STOP LOOK and LISTEN

Today such an instruction applied for as I moved up the road a chorus of alarm calls uttered by song thrush and blackbird presented me with a reminder of this safety sign that easily transfers to all wildlife observation. The reward for today being an eye-to-eye encounter with a young tawny owl, which, wide-eyed, gazed upon this noisy world in which I was possibly its first encounter with a human.

This human was both thrilled and humbled by this meeting.