15 NOVEMBER 1957, Page 27

LIT - rLE Owi.s A little owl has just flown into the

branches of a tree across the road and there is, perhaps, nothing very noteworthy in that, for little owls are common enough here, and yet anyone living in the district sixty-five years ago might have been greatly intrigued at such a sight. The little owl was a foreigner then and its cry was not heard in the gorse and fern hills round about. Fifty years ago ornithologists noted the finding of a little owl's nest as something of extra-. ordinary interest, while today even the bird-nesting boys from the local school have collected the little owl's egg. Like the corncrake in its day, however, the little owl seems to be better known for its cry than for its appearance. It often hunts in sunlight, of course, but it is inconspicuous and few people seem to know its stumpy build or the jogging annoyance it displays when suddenly encountered at close quar-

ters. Is it a good exchange to have the little Dutch- man in place of the corncrake whose decline, how- ever unconnected, marked time with the little owl's increase? Gourmets and gamekeepers would say no. The charges against the little owl may have been more or less exploded, but the loss of a breeding species can never be compensated for by an imported bird of any sort.