It is fairly straightforward to see or hear two species of owl in the Bourne Valley.

A walk outside at night-time and it won’t usually be long before you hear the hooting of a Tawny Owl. This is the most well-known owl call. Tawny Owls can make a variety of calls but the one most familiar are their "kee-wick" and "hoot" sounds. The hooting or “twoo” sound is usually made by the male and is a territorial call. You can sometimes hear a female responding to a male's “twoo” call with a sharp “kee-wick”.

Over the years I have been asked what a strange bird noise is at night-time, even been given recordings on a phone of the call – invariably the sounds will be those of a Tawny Owl.

In the day-time Tawny Owls roost in trees, nestled quite close to the main trunk. They are a mottled brown colour, and well camouflaged as a result. If disturbed they will silently glide away to another tree.

I think there are less Tawny Owls in the village than in the recent past. It is difficult to know why that is the case – maybe quite a few of the older Ash trees have been felled – due to Ash die-back disease, so there will be less places for them to rest up during the day. They are Britain’s commonest owl with about 50,000 breeding pairs in the UK. It is thought numbers generally are declining, so they are on the Amber list for endangered birds.

Tawny owls eat small mammals. The bones and fur are then regurgitated in a pellet. Their pellets are greyish and furry, medium sized - 20-50 mm long. The shape is long and narrow, and they tend to taper at one end.

As a boy one of my birdwatching mentors was David Glue – sadly no longer with us. He was a professional ornithologist, and his specialist area was owls. One of my tasks was to check under any tree where we thought a Tawny Owl rested up during the day, to collect the pellets. He would then dissect the pellets to work out what the bird had eaten.

The other owl that we can easily find in the area is a Barn Owl. They can be seen hunting over the fields around the village at night-time and in the half-light in the morning or evening. As we drive along the valley sometimes there is a flash of white seen in the car headlights - a Barn Owl flying over the road.

A Barn Owl pellet is normally regurgitated from roughly six hours after feeding, and one or two pellets can be produced each night.

There are just 4,000 breeding pairs of Barn Owls in the UK. We are fortunate to have some in the valley

They make screeching and hissing noises but are less vocal than Tawny Owls.

Barn Owls are not considered to be threatened with a relatively stable UK population.

If you are very fortunate you may see a Little Owl. This is an unusual bird in the valley.

The Little Owl is Britain’s smallest owl and they are quite quirky. It is an owl with attitude!! The Little Owl is actually not a UK native species.

Most of Britain’s Little Owls originate from introductions during the late 19th century. The first successful introduction was in Kent - they released 40 owls between 1874 and 1880.

A pair first bred in the UK in 1879. A second successful Little Owl introduction was carried out near Oundle in Northamptonshire during the 1880s. A pair first bred there in 1889. Little Owls rapidly colonised England from there.

There are approx 5,500 breeding pairs in the UK, but the population is declining quite fast. They are primarily insect eaters. Nobody seems very sure why the population has reduced so much. One theory is that with the rising number of Buzzards is an issue – a Buzzard will take a Little Owl for food.

10 years or so ago I would regularly see Little Owls in the valley – often sitting on fence posts by the side of the road. It is now an unusual sight.