Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 25 February 1916I am inclined to repeat a question asked by a Keswick correspondent: “Is there anything silly approximately the owls just now?” We can hardly imagine that they object to lighting orders,but certainly they appear to have taken a fancy for daylight hunting. The Keswick correspondent reports two different barn owls out in the morning and afternoon several times during the final two mouths, and also that a Sussex friend tells him that tawny owls “are out hunting all over the region by three in the afternoon.” On the same date that he wrote me, or another correspondent reported that he saw a barn owl a few days ago in search of food near Nantwich a runt before noon. Short-eared owls frequently hunt in the daytime,but barn and tawny owls are habitually crepuscular, and, or at most seasons of the year,only fly in the daytime when accidentally disturbed. When, however, or barn owls have hungry families demanding fixed attention they will sometimes strive to provide for them in broad daylight: only under these circumstances have I seen barn owls seeking prey by day. Although owls are early breeders we can hardly imagine that so many birds and in such widely separated places have already got young,and the conclusion is that there is something silly approximately them. The war, so far as one can guess, or has not made the capture of mice or slumbering sparrows more difficult.
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Source: theguardian.com