10 June 2019

Driving home over the tops from Colne, along the old packhorse trail through Widdop, I spotted a handful of crows tucking into a squashed rabbit at the side of the road. They took flight as the car approached. The last to leave, I was astonished to see, wasn’t a crow after all, but a little owl.

I’ve seen little owls plenty of times in the middle of the afternoon before, but I had no idea they ate carrion. Come to think of it, though, why wouldn’t they?


File under:

Richard Carter’s newsletters

Sign up to receive two free newsletters:

RICH TEXT
My personal newsletter about science, history and nature writing.

THE FRIENDS OF CHARLES DARWIN NEWSLETTER
Celebrating the grandeur in Darwin’s view of life.


Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *