Little owl in decline across Britain and Europe

Nature Notebook: Unlike similar introductions, the little owl has been an attractive addition to Britain’s avifauna

By Michael McCarthy
Tuesday, 26 January 2010 Here’s some sad news for birdwatchers and classicists alike: the wise old owl is in decline. Across Europe, the bird which began the association between owls and intelligence is dropping in numbers – the little owl, which in Greek mythology was the constant attendant of Athena, the goddess of wisdom. … You can see little owls in Britain, but they’ve only been here for about 120 years; they’re not a native species. They were introduced by Victorian gentleman-ornithologists of a classical bent, in particular by Edmund Meade-Waldo of Stonewall Park near Chiddingstone in Kent, who released birds onto his estate from 1874 (the first one bred in 1879), and by Lord Lilford, the president of the British Ornithologists’ Union, who made releases of Dutch birds at his Lilford Park estate near Oundle in Northamptonshire the following decade. Unlike similar introductions which proved to be ecological disasters, such as the grey squirrel and the muntjac deer, the little owl has been an attractive addition to Britain’s avifauna, perhaps because it’s not in direct competition with anything else and manages to fill a niche in the ecosystem: it’s an owl which eats earthworms (as well as anything else it can get). … No one knows why they are declining – it may be the spread of intensive farming – but they are dropping in numbers right across Europe, from Spain to Turkey, and in Britain they have declined by 18 per cent since 1995. Perhaps we should ask Athena for her help, and make her a propitiatory sacrifice. …