An unexpected encounter at dusk...

I have walked around the village quite a lot over the past two and a half years. My laps get longer in the summer, and cleave closer to the village core in winter, especially during the week.

But, as a result, the village is very familiar, and anything unusual tends to catch my attention. I ought to be our Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator, I guess.

This evening, my evening constitutional was delayed somewhat by the England game - and wasn’t that a nerve-shredding affair? - so the light was beginning to fade as I wandered down Pound Road towards the bridge over the A14. And then I noticed something black, sitting on the gravel outside 7 Peterhouse. It wasn’t very big, but it seemed out of place.

Suddenly, it moved, and to my surprise, a small rabbit was heading onto the road towards me. It stopped in front of me, and clearly wasn’t a wild one. So, I scooped it up.

I knocked on the door of number 7, small, cute rabbit held tightly against my chest. It wasn’t theirs. But I had someone to help, as we knocked on doors to see if anyone had lost a rabbit. At number 11, we had our first lead, and I headed down the street. And yes, a rabbit had been lost, the rabbit in my arms.

I handed it over to a happy owner.

Job done.

It’s never dull in Creeting St Peter...

One sweet day, I’ve made her mine...

Last year, I celebrated St Valentine’s Day by presenting Ros with sixty thousand breeding pairs of Magellenic penguins. Not literally, you understand, because whilst they’re cute, they do smell a bit, and the cottage is really too small for sixty pairs, let alone a thousand times as many. But you get the drift.

And so, my task this year was to find something similarly unusual. So, why not flamingos? In the middle of a desert...

Luckily, flamingos like saltwater, and the Atacama is famous for its salt flats, in which can be found three of the six varieties of flamingo - the Andean and Chilean, plus the James’s version, a winter visitor.

But first, we had a gentle warmup, with a visit to the Valley of the Moon, so called because, well, it looks quite a lot like the moon, and it’s such a forbidding environment that NASA tested out a Mars rover there. It’s not far from town, and we had a guide, Gustavo, who would be taking care of us for the rest of our stay, organised by the hotel.

And it is pretty daunting. The recent rain had caused salt to appear on the surface, looking at first glance as though there had been a light frost. We gingerly made our way across the barren terrain, because you don’t really want to fall over onto the jagged rocks.

Our next stop was an abandoned salt mine. It seems that the miners would drill holes into the rock, insert dynamite and stand well back. If a lode of salt was found, they would dig it out and then repeat the process. It is a bleak spot, with no water other than that you could carry there, and no shade either. Perhaps it was no surprise that they abandoned the mine.

After a break for lunch, it was time to head for the salt flats. The Salar de Atacama is the third largest salt flat in the world (the two bigger ones are across the Andes in Argentina and Bolivia) and it holds about 30% of the world’s known lithium reserves. This appears not to concern the flamingos, which is fortunate, who eat the brine shrimps to be found in the sinkhole lakes that occur here and there.

Laguna Cejar is the nearest of these lakes, and is an obvious place to visit if you want flamingos. They very kindly provide some useful information to read as you follow a path through the reserve, albeit entirely in Spanish, and you get to find out how the whole thing works. And then, you get to watch the flamingos as they go about their business, dabbling the shallow water to stir up the tiny brine shrimps which somehow give them their pink colour. Don’t ask me to explain how this works, as the brine shrimps aren’t pink, but there is science involved.

I was quite excited to find a lizard, which patiently stood still whilst I photographed it, but the flamingos were undoubtedly the stars of the show, gracefully making their way across the shallow water. Generally, we see them in zoos or parks, against a green backdrop, and whilst they look pretty, they seem vaguely uninteresting. But, against a background of crystalline salt, they look somehow more real and slightly less garishly pink, as though painted onto the landscape. Helpfully, Andean flamingos are paler than their Chilean counterparts, which allows you to tell them apart.

But it was time to head back, we had a dinner to eat and sleep to get before the next adventures...

Svalbard Diary, Day 11: The cruel sea...

Bjornøya, or Bear Island, is the only (small) piece of land between Norway proper and Svalbard, and it's not a hospitable place, home to a small group of researchers and nobody else. There is no harbour, no easy landing point. However, in fair weather, you can moor in a cove on the southern tip, and that what we were aiming for.

The sea was choppier than we had become used to, and Ros opted for a morning on the ship. I decided that it was time to find out just how successful my adjustment to life afloat had been.

It should be borne in mind that until this point, I had made a deal. If the sharks stayed in the water, I would stay on land, and it was an arrangement which, up until now, seemed to be mutually agreeable. Indeed, I've never seen a shark on land, unless of course you include Sid the Shark, the Sussex County Cricket mascot. And he's made of foam rubber, so he doesn't actually count.

The sea was a deep green colour as we made our way along the shore to study the admittedly impressive bird cliffs. It was cold, and the sky was a sullen grey. The swell was disconcerting, which had lead to a rather lower than usual turnout for breakfast. Frankly, I should have known better...

As we made our way past the assorted kittiwakes and guillemots, I was developing a rather uncomfortable awareness of my digestive system. It wasn't happy. Nor was I.

We continued our wobbly way along the cliff face, as feathered creatures zipped across the water and through the sky around us, and I was rather uncharitably beginning to conclude that, once you've seen ten thousand guillemots, you've seen them all. I wanted to be back on something more solid than a vulcanised rubber boat.

There was time for some quality zodiac driving though, as erosion has created a tunnel through the cliff face wide enough for a confident zodiac wrangler. Ours were all that good, and we emerged past some slightly nervous kittiwakes (and believe me, you don't want to be under nervous kittiwakes) into a small inlet.

We sped back to the Hebridean Sky, and I stepped aboard with alacrity. It was time for medication and a nap, as we waved Svalbard goodbye...

Svalbard Diary, Day 10 (still): "Did anyone order whale soup?"

We had set sail for Bjornøya, or Bear Island, an isolated piece of rock halfway between the southern tip of Spitsbergen and the North Cape of Norway, and the crew were putting on a show for the passengers. Ros and I had slipped away, but just as I was leaving, Colin, the Canadian cetacean expert, suggested that I might like to go to the viewing area on one of the upper decks.

Stopping only to pick up Ros, we made our way, binoculars in hand, and it wasn't long before we saw a telltale 'blow' in the distance. Whales! We watched alone, assuming that there would be an announcement at any moment, and we would be inundated with fellow passengers. But there was no announcement. Instead, there were more whales, everywhere we looked. Fin whales, humpback whales, plus bonus dolphins.

For fifteen minutes, we stared in wonderment, as fins cut the surface, tails cut the air. It was utterly stunning. Eventually, an announcement was made, and the laconic tones of Pam, the expedition leader, said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have whale soup out there.".

The fin whales seemed particularly relaxed, and allowed us to get so close that you could get good pictures with just an iPhone. They were everywhere.

To be honest, you could probably spend a lifetime looking for whales and seldom see so many at one time. And with the perfect viewing conditions, a calm sea, good light and a grey horizon which made spotting the whales even easier, it was bonanza time for us all. And we'd got the full set of arctic mammals...

Svalbard Diary, Day 6: The ice shelf and the kittiwake

We awoke to a rather gloomy picture, with temperatures below freezing and a stiff breeze from the north. However, we were passing the rarely seen ice shelf on the southern shore of Nordtauslandt, the second largest of Svalbard's islands. It's rarely seen because the pack ice seldom allows access, and even if you can get there, impenetrable fog often obscures the view.

Mile upon mile of ice cliffs, facing south, represents an impassable barrier. It was time to turn south.

We were heading for an area known as Kittiwake Canyon, where a crease in the hillside has created a perfect nesting sight for, yes, you guessed it, kittiwakes. Now I must admit that seabirds have not traditionally been a core fascination here at "Liberal Bureaucracy", but there is something curiously relaxing about a bunch of nesting birds, scattered across a cliff face. And the kittiwake seem pretty relaxed about us too, allowing us to get surprisingly close to them.

Apparently, kittiwake chicks have an innate sense of where the cliff ledge ends and the sheer drops starts, and early scientific researchers tested this in a way which seems astonishingly cruel nowadays. Different gull chicks were placed in kittiwake nests and inevitably fell to the deaths, demonstrating just how unique kittiwake are. Not a piece of knowledge with tremendous potential for application elsewhere, I'd have thought, but what do I know?...

Svalbard Diary, Day 3: Encountering the luckiest polar bear in the world...

It's an increasingly tough life as a polar bear. Climate change has caused a reduction in the amount of sea ice upon which they rely as a platform for catching seals, their staple diet. And sometimes, in high summer, they're forced to make a choice - rely on the sea ice as it retreats northwards, or stay on land and hope to be able to scavenge enough to keep body and soul together.

We were supposed to be heading out on the zodiacs to making a landing near a walrus haulout, but the tide had turned unexpectedly, and the last boat was diverted in the opposite direction, where a whale had recently washed ashore. Bad news for the whale, but the equivalent of a winning lottery ticket for a nearby polar bear, who we found on the scene. Off we went, and we were able to get incredibly close, close enough to watch it rip a huge chunk out of the carcass and get a good feed.

The bear, his appetite clearly sated, decided that a nap was called for, so we set off back to the walrus. My love of walrus knows no bounds, so I was perfectly happy. And we were in time to find a group of them in the shallows, wallowing around. Graceful is not a word often associated with walrus, even in the water, but they are attractive in a whiskery sort of way, and I got some good pictures before we had to return to the ship.

The afternoon was spent on a nature ramble at Rautfjord. The flora of Svalbard is not dramatic - the height of the trees can be measured in millimetres, and lichen are big here. Well, I say "big", but I suspect that you know what I mean. Clinging to every little opportunity, every slightly sheltered spot, life is somehow sustained.

The expedition team includes a range of expertise, birds, mammals, geology, and there is much useful information imparted. I now know about hairy lousewort, and purple saxifrage, and could, at a pinch, identify a Svalbard poppy. Delicate, yes, but surprisingly pretty. And the reindeer need to eat something, I suppose...

What better Valentine's Day gift than this?

A Magellenic Penguin - cute little
thing, isn't (s)he?

Flowers are nice, if a bit unchallenging. Of course, picking the right colour should matter, although I tend to pick colours that I like and hope that that suits the recipient. But, on Valentine's Day, it's the thought that counts, especially if it involves having to make an effort.

And so, this year, I thought about what to do instead, especially as we were going to be a long way from our local florist. And then it struck me - we were going to be convenient for a day out with something cute.

The Natural Monument Los Penguinos is on Isla Magdalena, a small rocky outcrop in the middle of the Straits of Magellan, but an easy boat ride from Punta Arenas. It hosts approximately 60,000 breeding pairs of Magellenic penguins, and the public can go and visit them, as long as they obey the rules - do not touch the penguins, do not leave the roped off path, do not approach within one metre of the penguins (even if they walk across the path!).

It did mean a very early start, but Ros is good at those, and we were soon on the water, heading for the island on a remarkably tranquil day for the region. It didn't take long before we reached Isla Magdalena and there were the penguins - hundreds and hundreds of them, wandering about, digging burrows and swimming in the shallow water on the shoreline.

Everywhere we went, more penguins and it became clear that the more mature penguins got the nesting sites closer to the water, and the relatively junior members of the community had to make their way further inland in order to find a place to nest. It's a fair way from the water, and uphill, so for the juniors, it's hard work to bring food for their chicks.

We only had an hour though, and it was back to the boat for the short journey to Isla Marta. You don't get to go onshore there, but the attraction is the sea lions, who bask of the rocky shore. Some of them swam towards the boat for a closer look whilst our captain made sure that everyone got a good look and plenty of pictures.

Sadly, it was time to head back to shore, but if you happen to be in Punta Arenas, we can strongly recommend the Solo Expediciones tour...

Campaign Diary: Day 17 - a hard-working candidate and a stoat on a mission

Saturday morning found me in Barking, looking to meet more voters, when I knocked on a door. The door opened and I was told that they had received their postal ballot. This was not necessarily a welcome surprise, because the plan was to deliver letters to all postal voters the next day - we had been told by Mid Suffolk District Council's Electoral Services team that they would be going out the next day.

It would be fair to say that this candidate wasn't impressed.

There was nothing to be done but to accelerate the schedule somewhat, so I arranged for my allocation of letters to be brought to me by the ever patient Ros.

A hard working, local stoat...

As I headed to the agreed rendezvous, I noticed a movement on the footpath ahead of me. A closer examination indicated a weasel-like creature, carrying a baby rabbit in its mouth. It was a stoat, and the baby rabbit was somewhat bigger than it was. As I caught up with it, it headed into the undergrowth and, not wanting to disturb it, I kept walking, until I reached the entrance to the care home at Barking Hall.

A few moments later, the stoat appeared again, still with its prey in its mouth, crossed the B1078, and ran along the curb until it darted back across the road and into the long grass.

It wasn't long before the stoat, minus baby rabbit, darted back out and up the street. It was my first stoat, and I was surprised by how small they actually are, much smaller than a ferret, for example.

But I now had envelopes to deliver, and it was clear that I wasn't going to have any trouble hitting my 12,500 step target for the day...

I've really blown the title this time - 28 October 2015

Is this Government really working on the incompetence bit?

There is a point when you really have to wonder. It's easy to describe Tories as evil. Lazy, perhaps, but easy nonetheless. But, the thing about the bad guys is that they're generally well-organised (evil lairs built into volcanoes don't come easy, you know). And, at the moment, with a European negotiation without much in the way of negotiating points, and welfare reform carried out via the most vulnerable of legislative methods, you begin to fear just how much damage they could do if they knew what they were doing.

In truth, they do know what they're doing. And we're not going to like it...

Not seventy-six trombones, but one will do...

More music from Latin America today and, just to prove that even a trombone can be hip, here's Hector "Parquimetro" Briceño, playing Doña Flor...

On this day in... 2011

I was wildlife spotting in... Creeting St Peter. It is easy to forget just how much wildlife there is, even in the arable landscape that is mid-Suffolk. Indeed, as it turns out, three types of deer can be spotted in the parish. And don't start me on the birds...

Far from the campaign trail - a goldfinch comes...

A goldfinch... but not my goldfinch...

I was sitting in our conservatory on Sunday morning, drinking tea, when I looked out at the bird feeder planted in the middle of the lawn and noticed a somewhat unusual looking bird with its beak searching for a free snack. "What's that?", I asked Ros, our household nature expert. She peered at it, slightly myopically - we both have eyesight which is less than optimal - and mused.

Luckily, the wonders of the internet allowed me to establish that it was, in fact, a goldfinch. Goldfinches are quite attractive, with their red faces and yellow wing flashes, and I haven't seen very many previously. That said, now that we feed the wild birds, we have a rather more lively garden, with plenty of birdsong to add a little cheer even on the dullest morning.

It is one of the pleasures of rural life, in that you do have time to stop and stare, to absorb the change of the seasons - the oil seed rape is beginning to flower, turning whole fields into adverts for the Liberal Democrats, the hedges are beginning to blossom and life generally is becoming greener, with the promise of a good harvest to come.

Apparently, there is a General Election campaign going on out there somewhere, although it hasn't really come to our village yet...

A red, red robin comes bob bob bobbing along...

Ros has taken to feeding the birds, now that we don't have neighbours - they had cats - and one robin in particular has become pretty bold. So, as I left the house this morning, here it was, seemingly waiting to be fed...

I am a sucker for small, cute wildlife, so I went to the box where bird food is kept, and scattered some across the patio.

Eat well, my little friend...

Random walrus corner...

Handsome devil, isn't he?

It isn't often that walruses are in the news, so the coverage of large gatherings of walruses on the shores of Alaska has been very interesting, even if the news is somewhat troubling.

 

Climate change means that the icefloes which walruses use to raise their young and to rest between clam-digging expeditions have not formed this year, and so beaches are the only alternative. And they do so in huge groups, which seems a bit unlikely when you consider the number of likely enemies they would have onshore.

 

According to the Guardian, walruses are rather skittish - at least, as skittish as a creature weighing up to two tonnes with long, curved tusks can be.

 

Let's hope that this ends well, because whilst walruses are never going to get as much attention as pandas, whales or tigers, they are amazing creatures with personality...

Me and the guanaco, we're probably both a bit bemused...

So, here I am at the other part of Berlin Zoo, Tierpark Berlin, the former East Berlin Zoo. It is slightly unusual, in that there is a cemetery tucked away in the woods, and an anti-fascism memorial faces one of the exhibits. It also has just a hint of communism, in that the animals are scattered about with long walks between them, as if to give the impression that there is more here to see than there actually is. It is very peaceful though.

The other thing about the zoo, on a more positive note, is that the enclosures are rather bigger. Yes, they probably could be bigger, but by the standards of most zoos, they're still pretty impressive.

The other thing about the Tierpark is that it doesn't seem very commercial. Unlike Zoo Berlin's main site, there aren't many opportunities to buy junk food, or plush toys, or anything really. There doesn't appear to be an opportunity to watch various exciting animals being fed. It's almost as though someone has said, "Alright, we'll round up some animals in one place and people can look at them if they want. Just don't ask us to get involved beyond that.".

Funnily enough, the guanaco across from where I'm sitting appears to be deep in thought too. At least it doesn't have a plane to catch later...

The pandas of Schonbrunn

Not long after the pandas arrived at Edinburgh Zoo, Ros went to see them with her sister. It's a long way to Edinburgh from mid-Suffolk, but Ros was really keen, having never seen a panda up close before. Sadly, her effort was in vain, as one of the pandas was off display through ill health, and the other was on a high platform, meaning that you could only see its shoulder and one ear.

Yang Yang, a very unusual panda indeed

I had, in doing my pre-trip research, realised that the zoo at Schonbrunn, in Vienna's western suburbs, apart from being the oldest zoo in the world (opened as an imperial menagerie in 1752), has pandas, and so I decided that Ros should get another opportunity to see her panda. And so, with the business part of our trip over, we set off under grey skies to see them.

Tiergarten Schönbrunn, to give it its proper name, is a surprisingly nice zoo given the limitations of space, with decent sized enclosures and seemingly happy animals. And, it feels Viennese in terms of its architecture and layout. But our priority was, of course, pandas, and we headed straight to them.

Mother and son

The pandas have been there now for more than a decade, so perhaps the excitement that Edinburgh has experienced has worn off a little, but for those starved of pandas, we were quite excited. And we weren't disappointed...

Young Fu Bao has mastered climbing already

For the zoo is only one of four zoos in Europe that have pandas, Long Hui, who is male, and Yang Yang, the female, and the only one of the four which has successfully bred naturally. Indeed, they've produced three cubs, Fu Long and Fu Hu, who now live in China. Apparently, the deal is that if cubs are produced, China gets them after two years.

Best of all, on 14 August last year, young Fu Bao was born, which meant that he was still there!

Ros was, naturally, delighted, although she now wants to see them in China, something that I can't really object to. Now, all I need to do is work out when, and how, we might get to Chengdu...

Sivuqaq: a love story

I admit that I have a fondness for animals, although not always the obvious ones. Sea otters, giraffe and orangutans are fairly obvious, I guess, but iguana, rhinos and aardvarks aren't. But I have discovered a new favourite.

Walruses are not exactly cute. They don't have the range of clever tricks that, say seals have. They aren't graceful on land, or dramatic in the water, but they have character. And, as someone who likes to describe himself as more walrus than gazelle, I find myself fascinated by them.

And so it was with some delight that I came across a documentary about walruses on BBC2 on Saturday night. Sivuqaq (he's the handsome devil on the right-hand side of the picture) is the hero of our story, with a range of delightful and charming habits, but with one flaw. Movie star, character actor - he was the walrus in 50 First Dates - but so far, not successful as a father. And, if I couldn't be what I am now, I suspect that I'd be quite happy being him.

Sadly, it's only on BBC i-player for another ten days, until 31 October, so I strongly recommend that you take some time to have a look.

You won't regret it...

My day as a zookeeper - O is for Otter, R is for Red River Hog

I only got a relatively fleeting look at the smooth-coated otters at Otter Creek, as time was short, and they can't entirely be trusted with non-keepers, playful little scamps that they are, but there was time to find out a bit about them.

I got rather more time with the red river hogs though. They have the misfortune to be at a relatively remote corner of the zoo, and don't get as many visitors as, say, the meerkats. I like them though, and got to get fairly close to them.

Not happy, not happy at all...

My job was to feed them an assortment of apples, carrots, broccoli and other healthy stuff. The hitherto dominant male wasn't entirely happy, having been recently castrated to prevent the group from getting any larger, but he was still content to eat apples from my hand.

He couldn't have everything though, so I was obliged to give the fruit and vegetables some air. The downside of this was that some of the hogs were in receipt of glancing blows to the head from low-flying fruit. They seemed to take it in good spirit though.

And that left just one more animal, also beginning with R...

My day as a zookeeper: M is for Meerkat

The country's most popular animal, entirely down, it seems, to the advertising genius employed by a comparison website was on my list of animals to see. What I hadn't expected was that I would be part of the exhibit...

The Suricata Sands exhibit is, naturally, one of the most visited attractions at Colchester Zoo, and I was to go and find out about what they eat, and how they are looked after.

Posing for the camera...

First, I was admitted into the enclosure to take a closer look, and to be introduced to the 'mob' and their environment. Naturally, as burrowing animals, the enclosure is, effectively, a concrete bowl filled with suitable soil, studded with rocks and logs, some hollow, for them to dig under, run through or stand on.

They all have names, naturally, and the group is led by the dominant female, who is usually pregnant. They're also incredibly inquisitive, and my presence didn't appear to bother them at all. It did, however, appear to confuse some of the visitors, who wondered what I was doing there.

We then returned to the inner sanctum, where it was time for feeding and simultaneous enrichment. My job was to pour mealworms and slices of banana into paper bags, scrunch them up into balls, and throw them into as many parts of the enclosure as possible. It seems that I'm quite good at it, although the meerkats were just as good, if not better, at finding them, shredding them and eating the contents.

And yes, they are just as cute in the flesh as they appear from television and adverts...

My day as a zookeeper: L is for Lemur, amongst other things

One of the greatest things about Colchester Zoo is their new lemur exhibit, and as I'm a huge lemur fan from my childhood days watching 'Animal Magic', I wasn't going to miss out on the opportunity to spend some quality time with them.

My new best friend. He only loves me for my raisins...

I had already met the two red-ruffed lemurs, stroked their fur and made a fuss of them, and discovered that their snouts are like the softest leather. They're patient little fellows too, although they're a bit timid if you rush at them. Luckily, my years of experience of cats has taught me that you need to approach them slowly, so that they can see you, and I was tolerated sufficiently to get close.

But the highlight was my visit to the Lost Madagascar exhibit. My job was to sit on a rock in the exhibit, armed only with a handful of raisins, and deal with the ring-tailed lemurs. It appears that raisins are a huge treat for lemurs, and that they are only fed to them once a week, which meant that, at the first scent of raisins, I was mobbed by the entire troop, babies and all.

I can assure you that they are very persistent, but I did try to make sure that everybody got a treat, and the zoo visitors on the walkway through the exhibit did get to see what it is like to be covered in lemurs. Luckily, I'm a fairly solid citizen these days, so I was able to remain stable and focussed.

All I want now is a chance to travel to Madagascar, to visit the lemurs in their natural environment. I'll need to persuade Ros, methinks...

There are other animals beginning with L. I wasn't allowed to interact with them directly, for reasons that will become clear soon...

Creeting St Peter: a small demonstration of the value of capital investment...

Last year, I was approached by Alice, the enthusiastic and hard working Chair of our Parochial Church Council, about the problems caused by kestrels nesting in the tower of our Grade 1 listed mediaeval church. Unfortunately, whilst we encourage wildlife here in mid-Suffolk, the cost of cleaning and of making good the damage is a burden best avoided.

And so, it was resolved that a nesting box suitable for kestrels be purchased, and I asked one of our residents, whose father makes such things, to build something appropriate, writing a personal cheque to speed up the process. In due course, I heard that the box had been placed in the churchyard, and all that was left to do was wait and see.

Last weekend, the phone rang. Stephen, whose father had built the box, had checked it and found that, not only was it in use, but it contained four kestrel fledglings, all seemingly in good health.

Cost of one kestrel box? £25. Savings for the Parochial Church Council? Hundreds, perhaps thousands, in the coming years. The thought of more kestrels flying free over the Creetings? Priceless...

Barn owls over Suffolk

One of the pleasures of rural life is the wildlife, something that, as a transplanted Londoner, one doesn't take for granted.

And as 'wildlife monitor' on the Parish Council, I've taken more of an interest in conservation. I'm a member of the Suffolk Wildlife Trust, and spent a slightly frustrating evening in their badger hide last year, watching the badgers... hide.

We were encouraged to keep an eye out for owls last year and, occasionally, I would see one out in the fields, hunting for field mice at dusk. They are rather impressive, and they glide silently over the wheat bringing death to any unwary small rodent they might spot.

It is therefore good news to hear that the recorded number of breeding pairs of barn owls in Suffolk has increased from 108 in 2007 to 427 last year, on the back of an initiative to install nest boxes across the county, through the Suffolk Community Barn Owl Project. So successful has their work been that they reckon that there are more barn owls now than there were in 1932.

I understand that they are giving away free barn owl boxes and fixing them for community projects, so I might well be in touch...