Yesterday I popped in to see the lady who does the nature notes for our local village magazine - Monika.

She said on Sunday that she'd received an e-mail from a lady saying she'd found 2 dead owls laid together on a verge on the main road back from Skipton - how strange! There are little owls in the area that frequent a barn just a few hundred yards away, so initally it was thought it was them.

Monika and her hubby went to investigate and it turns out there were 3 and they were Tawny Owls - all adults as well!?! One had been squished on the road and the other two were in good condition with only one having a speck of blood on it.

What a very unusual finding eh!?! How did they get there? How did they die? But why 3 together?....very, very strange.

Monika phoned the police as there is a dedicated wildlife officer at the station (because were in the Yorkshire Dales National Park), but he wasn't in. She's left a message and is hoping he'll collect the birds (which are still there today as I saw them earlier!) and perhaps get a vet to check them out to see if there's been any foul play eg. poisoning etc.

Poor things. Having one die is bad enough, but 3

I'll let you know if we can find out what's happened ok!

Thats terrible, keep usposted on what happened to the birds. Its very strange that all three of them died at the same time especially when there is nothing obviously wrong with two of them. I just hope it wasn't some awful person that did this or a dangerous disease.

The three of them being together reminds of an article I read a while back where some animals seem to show mourning when one of their close relatives passes away.

Could the two have been poisoned accidentally? It seems to be more than a coincidence that there would be three dead owls in the same place at the same time.

Kingfisher

Riana - not sure that owls have the 'mourning' tendancy do they?!? Maybe, just don't know tbh.

There's certainly something 'fishy' about it IMO!

Will let you know when I hear anything

Were they definately adults??? I was thinking that because of all the info given on 'Springwatch' about the lives of Tawny Owls some sicko could have killed them for the so called 'fun'. It's a worrying thought but what do you think?

It does seem to unlikely to be a coincidence, if they were all adults especially. If they were young, is it possible that they were abandoned by their parents for whatever reason?

They were definately adults - Monika has been a wildlife crusader in this area for 25 yrs - she knows her stuff alright!

It is also highly possible that some 'sicko' did kill them somewhere else and dumped them, but why on a busy road and then leave them all together?

I did read something interesting regarding fledgling tawny owls a couple of weeks ago that was posted on a rescue centres website in Rochdale. It said to NEVER pick up young tawnies as they often sleep on the ground face down! and they can easily scale an 18' tree if need be to get back to their nest or roost. If they are taken away from their natural environment (even if found on the ground) then they can never be released back into the wild as they haven't learnt all the skills they need to survive from their parents (humans cannot teach them these skills) and will therefore be left in captivity for the rest of their lives.

So to recap.... if anyone finds a healthy tawny on the ground - leave it alone please!

Still no news from this end. I'll e-mail Monika in a bit and see if there have been any developments.