Owls
Barn Owl Tyto alba
Formerly common over much of Britain in the first half of the 20th Century, Barn Owls became a cause for serious concern during the 1980s when numbers plummeted to around 5,000 pairs as a result of agricultural intensification and the resultant pesticides and habitat loss. There are now less than 4,000 pairs in Britain. The East Riding remains something of a stronghold for this beautiful and enigmatic species, however, and there are several places in the Hull area where they are a regular sight.
The first mention of the Barn Owl around Hull comes from the carnage wrought after a severe frost in early 1947 when G. H. Ainsworth, the East Riding recorder for the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, had no less than five dead Barn Owls brought to him, along with a Little Owl and four Tawny Owls. Boylan (1967) regarded the Barn Owl as a regular but uncommon breeding bird in the suburbs of Hull during the 1960s, while a pair bred in the chimney of a house in Thwaite Street, Cottingham, in 1968 and could often be seen hunting on the Priory Road fields. Others were seen in Thwaite Street and also at The Lawns during spring in 1984 and 1985. Hunting birds were seen around Kirk Ella and Anlaby in midwinter during the late 1970s and early 1980s but sightings were rare around Saltend, with just a single record during the well-watched mid 1980s of one hunting over Saltend Marsh in late November.Barn Owls were regularly observed around North Bransholme from the late 1980s onwards, though they were no doubt present before this. A pair was hunting along Foredyke Stream, between North Bransholme and the Holderness Drain, in October 1989 and a bird hunting there in broad daylight in early June 1992 probably had chicks to feed nearby. From late May 1993 Barn Owls were seen almost daily as they hunted along the eastern margin of North Bransholme, but especially on the marshy grassland between Foredyke Stream and Bransholme Road [now the Noddle Hill Nature Reserve]. In early June I watched two birds hunting there in broad daylight and was delighted when both carried off prey in different directions, one towards Carlam Hill Farm (near Wawne) and the other towards Thirty Acre Farm (near Swine), where both surely had chicks in the nest. Shortly afterwards a third bird was seen carrying food towards Fairholme Farm, between Wawne and Swine. Throughout June all three birds were regularly followed through binoculars, often just minutes apart, as they flew in a direct path to their respective nests with voles in their talons before returning to the grassland at North Bransholme.
The fact that three pairs were travelling to hunt on this piece of land, the Fairholme birds flying over a mile each way to do so, just goes to show the conservation value of this unbroken area of rough grassland. Through a telescope I was able to locate and observe the Thirty Acre Farm nest from my back garden and watched the six youngsters fledge in the first week of July. Interestingly, the other adult from this nest always flew off to hunt in the opposite direction to Bransholme. Birds were seen on the Bransholme hunting grounds throughout the winter and into 1994, with at least one of the nest sites used annually since then. In addition, there were at least three active pairs in the Wawne area in June 2001. A pair of Barn Owls were hunting at Bilton in January 1993 and there were three sightings in the Avenues area of Hull in 1996. Another pair nested in the derelict Haworth Hall, upstream of Sutton Road Bridge on the River Hull, before it was restored and in 1998 a pair bred near Sutton Golf Course while another was present at Hedon during the breeding season. Winter records in the late 1990s came from Hedon by-pass, Clive Sullivan Way, Stoneferry Road, Sutton Fields Industrial Estate, Saltend and Bransholme, so one may reasonably expect to see a Barn Owl over any suitable area of rough grassland anywhere in the Hull area if they watch regularly enough.
Little Owl Athene noctua
The British population of Little Owls largely stems from deliberate introductions in the Midlands in the late 19th Century. The first birds in the Hull area probably arrived during the 1920s, by which time E. W. Wade stated that they seemed to have spread across the whole of the East Riding.
Breeding was confirmed just east of Hedon in 1938 and a nest was found at Willerby in 1942, with a bird picked up dead in Hull after heavy frosts in early 1947. By the 1960s Boylan described the Little Owl as an irregular breeder within the suburbs of the old Hull boundary and two were near the Springhead Golf Course, between Hull and Willerby, in July 1975 and April 1976. One was at Preston in April 1979 and another spent a week in Hedon Road Cemetery that summer. Singles were seen between North Bransholme and the Holderness Drain throughout the late 1980s and nesting was reported from fields north of Wawne around that time, with birds still present during the breeding season in 2001. Nesting has also been confirmed around Meaux Abbey, just north of the Hull area, since at least the 1970s. There were curious reports of Little Owls being heard and seen at Holderness House, at the corner of Holderness Road and Laburnum Avenue in Hull, in the early to mid 1990s, this being very unusual so far into the suburbs. More recent records involve a dead bird found just north of the Humber Bridge in February 1997 and another, very much alive, at Dunswell in January 1999.
Tawny Owl Strix aluco
Although less visible about the Hull area than the Barn Owl, the highly nocturnal Tawny Owl is nevertheless likely to be the most common owl in the region, with hooting being a familiar sound even well into the built up areas of Hull and the surrounding villages. Tawny Owls occur wherever there are suitable mature trees to nest in and enough wild ground to hunt on, with roosting birds not uncommonly discovered high in the branches of some tree or deep in a hawthorn bush. Boylan (1967) reported that the Tawny Owl was a fairly widespread breeding species within 1960s Hull and roosting birds were sometimes spotted in the elm trees down Barrington Avenue, near Northern Cemetery. Hedon Road Cemetery, on the other side of town, has also had a complement of Tawny Owls for many years. The Cemetery was not always without hazards for unwary Tawny Owls, however, and birds occasionally drowned in the public water tanks although up to three pairs still manage to make a living in that part of the city.
A Tawny Owl or two was occasionally heard or seen in woods around Kirk Ella in the mid to late 1970s and Bonavia (1990) described them as common around Cottingham and northwest Hull in the early 1980s, with fluffy young seen in Cottingham in May and June. There were just three sightings around Saltend and the eastern docks in 1985 and only one the following year, but breeding has been occurring in East Park and Pearson Park for many years. Hooting is often heard along the Old Main Drain hedgerow at North Bransholme, as well as from the mature trees down Wawne Road and around Sutton. Between 1991 and 1993 a pair roosted daily between November and April in a Scots Pine off Cumbrian Way, the conifer offering some cover once all the other trees had lost their leaves. I often used to check on them and occasionally analysed their pellets to see what they had been preying upon. I was very surprised one day to find a pellet composed entirely of turquoise feathers that, on closer inspection, also contained the characteristic skull, feet and long tail feathers of a Budgerigar! The remains of House Sparrows were often found in the pellets, alongside the more usual small rodents, and Tawny Owls are clearly not averse to picking off any suitable roosting birds they come across, even if they are an exotic colour.
There is some evidence of a slight decline in the population of Tawny Owls around the Hull area in recent years, with 1996 sightings around the Avenues being less frequent than formerly and there was just one record from the Priory Road fields in the same year.
Eagle Owl (Eurasian Eagle Owl) Bubo bubo
To come across one of these huge owls in Hull must be a bit of a shock, but one was nevertheless discovered down Shaftesbury Avenue, just off Holderness Road near East Park, on 13th February 2001 by startled passers-by. Obviously an escapee from a local aviary, the bird was later believed to have been caught and returned to captivity. There are many of these impressive birds in British aviaries, several of them in the Hull area, but escaped birds have actually managed to pair up and breed elsewhere in Yorkshire in recent years. Their huge size and voracious appetite, with animals as large as young Roe Deer being on the menu, means that they can wreak havoc if left in the wild. An escapee at Wath Ings, South Yorkshire, in March 1995 was feeding on Coots for two weeks until it was recaught. Even worse, it also managed to pick off a Barn Owl and Little Owl during its bid for freedom. Another escaped Eagle Owl in a Sheffield cemetery around the same time was reputed to be dining on the local cat population!
Long-eared Owl Asio otus
Long-eared Owls are mainly passage migrants and winter visitors in the Hull area, being unpredictable in occurrence and nowhere common. Long-eared Owls are renowned for their habit of communal winter roosting and the sighting of one bird sat tight in the depths of a hawthorn bush often leads the eye to another bird or two nearby.
There was just one passage record from Hull between 1960 and 1966, with another in Hedon Road Cemetery in early spring sometime during the early 1970s. One was found roosting in a willow tree in Appleton Road, behind Bricknell Avenue in West Hull, on 7th November 1979 and two were roosting in hawthorns near Saltend in early December 1985. Another was along the Hedon Road stretch of the Holderness Drain at the end of March the following year and again in mid April, when two were also roosting on Saltend Marsh. Two more were in the Saltend area again in mid November 1986. There were six sightings of roosting Long-eared Owls in the Avenues area of Hull in the mid 1990s, between September and May, and a well-watched bird was sharing the limelight with a Great Grey Shrike southeast of North Bransholme in late March and early April 1996. More were seen at Saltend in 1998, with singles on and off in April, June and November. The June records are a little unusual, as most Long-eared Owl sightings are between November and April and there is no evidence of breeding anywhere in the Hull area. Even more tantalising was the sight of a Long-eared Owl leaving a roost in a copse just east of North Bransholme on the late afternoon of 17th July 1993. The tree the bird flew from, a Scots Pine, had an old Carrion Crow nest in the upper branches, just the sort of nesting site Long-eared Owls like, but that was the first and last time it was seen and no calling was ever heard. It was probably just passing through. On 5th December 2000, just a few hundred yards away at the Old Main Drain hedgerow, my dog got a little excited at something among the hawthorns and eventually flushed a large brown bird that revealed itself to be a Long-eared Owl as it flew past me. Still not satisfied, the dog promptly flushed at least another two from roughly the same spot. This trio constituted the largest roost reported from the Hull area.
Short-eared Owl Asio flammeus
Primarily a passage migrant in the Hull area, the Short-eared Owl is also a winter visitor in small and decreasing numbers. On 30th August 1946 two birds were seen quartering fields at Sutton, these being the earliest autumn migrants recorded in the Hull area, while breeding was recorded 'near Hull' in 1948. Just two passage migrants were seen within the old city boundary during the first half of the 1960s, though sightings were more frequent in the Hull area up to the early 1990s.
An impressive four birds were seen along Carr Lane, near Willerby, in January and February 1979. Saltend is traditionally one of the key sites for Short-eared Owls in the area and a few birds can be found there in most winters, with up to three in early 1985 while a late bird was seen from 5th to 8th May 1986. The marshy grassland southeast of North Bransholme also accounted for many records between the mid 1980s and early 1990s and one or two birds were seen on numerous occasions from December to April. A bird quartering the rough grassland there on 22nd October 1988 may have been the same one seen throughout the winter and into the following spring. In March 1989, however, I saw a pair of Short-eared Owls displaying over a field of long grass at North Bransholme, just 300 yards from the housing estate. The birds were talon-grappling before one began wing-clapping and giving the booming display call. Conscious that this was breeding behaviour, I began to move away from the area only for one owl to follow and begin mobbing me and my accompanying dog. Short-eared Owls begin nesting in early April, so this may well have indicated the start of a breeding attempt. A week or so later, in April, a visit to the same area produced three owls. Two birds flushed from a tussock flew off together and were clearly a pair. The third bird, disturbed a short distance away, was probably a passage migrant and it left in the opposite direction. A few days later a Short-eared Owl was seen carrying prey in the same vicinity. Whether this food was for its own consumption, though owls usually swallow prey on catching it, or for feeding to an incubating female or even chicks in the nest can only be guessed at. Whatever the case, soon after these events much of the immediate area was buried under tons of rubble as the site was prepared for a development that never happened. Unsurprisingly the owls disappeared.
Passage birds continued to visit North Bransholme, however, with one on 31st October 1989, while a bird seen arriving at great height on 3rd October 1993 dropped down to hunt and were seen regularly over the following week. Sightings at North Bransholme have been rather rare since then, although one was present in January 1999. West of the River Hull has always attracted far fewer Short-eared Owls than areas to the east, with only very occasional reports from Priory Road fields or the outskirts of Cottingham. One at Eppleworth, to the west of Cottingham, on 3rd June 1986 was an unusual summer record while one hunting around the gas works and River Hull on Clough Road in 1990 was actually shot and wounded by an airgunner, ending up at the RSPCA for rehabilitation.
Most Short-eared Owls have occurred in the Hull area between early October and mid April, the majority on low-lying rough grassland in the east of the area. With the decrease in records everywhere since the early 1990s it has become increasing difficult to see a Short-eared Owl around Hull, with Saltend now being the most likely place to find one.