Tawny Owl and Little Owl have always been around the Queensbury area during the last 50 + years I,ve been birding whereas Short Eared Owl were see able but a rare sight whilst Long Eared were unheard of locally and Barn Owl was just something you dreamt about .
Short Eared were usually seen heading over the moor on passage during the autumn and very few were resident.
To see Long Eared Owl you had to head out of the area to one of the large forestry commission plantations and even then chances were slim due to the denseness of the trees and your only hope was to see them coming out into the open hunting for food.
Barn Owls were a common enough sight but only as you travelled east beyond York where they could be viewed quartering the large expanse of meadow land and even flying low along the roadside over the grass verges.
Slowly over the last few years Owls have made an amazing comeback and now we can boast that we have all 5 species of owl in the Queensbury area.
Little Owl are a common sight around farmland sitting out on dry stone walls in the sunshine whilst Tawny Owls are getting more urban being seen on lamps and telegraph poles at the side of main roads with people walking past oblivious of them being there.
Short Eared Owls are becoming a common sight on our moorlands with more and more reports coming in each year whilst several Long Eared Owls have taken up residence in some of our woodlands.
Barn Owl has been the last to move into the area, a bird I thought would never have been found locally other than a few escapees which have appeared in the past but now , with recent reports around Queensbury and a wider local area, it looks like the beautiful Barn Owl is here to stay.
BS