Williamson's Weekly Nature Notes

An ancient engraving in my possession shows two gents in blue breeks and bowlers, muskets almost smoking still, hanging the offender up for all to see. The earliest record I have describing a change of thought comes in 1813 from a Mr Waterton of Walton Hall.

Returning from travels in Guiana, he was shocked to find that his gamekeeper had killed his barn owls. "Its mournful notes had alarmed my aged housekeeper," he reported.

"She knew full well what sorrows it had brought into the house when she was a young woman, and there was enough mischief in the midnight wintry blast, without having it increased by the dismal screams of something which everyone knew was far too busy in the churchyard at night.

"Nay, it was a well-known fact that if anyone was sick in the neighbourhood the owl would for ever be looking in at the window and holding a conversation with something or body only it could see outside. The gamekeeper agreed, knowing too that he stood better in her books every time he shot a member of this bad and wicked family of birds."

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette January 23