Head to Bore Place and you might spot a Barn Owl in flight Credit: Getty Go on a nocturnal owl hunt A nocturnal world of wonder awaits visitors on a two-hour night walk at Bore Place, the historic 500-acre estate near Chiddingstone. Ecologist and bird expert Tom Forward will be your guide, encouraging you to follow your ears in a bid to encounter the owls that call Bore Place (well, its fields and woodland anyway) home. Explains Tom, ‘We’ll be on the look out for tawny owls - famed for their distinctive ‘t-wit,-t-woo’ calls - at a unique point in their life cycle.
At this time of year, parent owls essentially aim to kick the kids out of home, using their hoots and screeches to cajole their young into heading solo out into the woods in search of their own territories. Bird-call mimicry is one of my superpowers, so I’ll be making hoots to see if we can get a response from the owls. We’ll also be looking for barn owls, which can be found in grassland at the edges of fields just after the sun’s gone down.
‘I’ll be bringing my infra-red camera, paired up to my tablet, so if there is anything nearby, we may well be able to see it on screen even if we can’t spot it with the naked eye. Walking at twilight and into darkness is a very special experience in itself – something many of us don’t often do - and there’s a chance we’ll encounter other creatures, too; perhaps a bat on the wing, foxes, badgers and brown hares out for a nigh-time forage.’ Tom’s po.