Most evenings at dusk, we take a last cup of tea out to watch the barn owls from the back garden gate. A pair has used the box in our neighbour’s field ever since we put it up five years ago, and for the first time, they have raised two chicks. This is heartening enough, but it feels almost miraculous considering 2025 has been so bad for barn owls. It’s thought poor grass growth in a hot, dry year has suppressed numbers of their main prey, voles and mice, which were already low from natural fluctuations.

And so, over spring and summer, we have watched as each fluffy owlet emerged from the box and tiptoed along the oak branches like ghouls. We’ve watched their parents sweep in to feed them – sometimes at worryingly long intervals – the siblings waiting on the nestbox platform, turning their heads upside down, snapping at flies. We have seen them fledge, bouncing from tree to tree above the old paddock, then out to measure and survey Home Field.

Hunting ground for owls on the edge of the field. Photograph: Nicola Chester

Tonight, our children are with us, to help with a move from the only family home they’ve known. The now-grown owlets float out in front of us, across the sunburnt field, gold behind them.

One attempts to chase a hare. The other passes close by and I make eye contact with the kids. I try a well-timed “squeak-in”, noisily kissing the back of my hand to imitate exposed prey, an old trick I reserve for special occasions. The owl jinks towards us, circles, and in one perfect moment, hovers right overhead, looking down on us intently. The setting sun illuminates the overlap of softly fringed feathers and the heart-shaped, toast-spreckled face. It circles again to be sure nothing here can be eaten, then rows away, folds itself up like an origami plane, and dives for something real among the crisp brown clover.

The box in the field is no longer ours in any sense. And for all the vulnerability of their habitat, barn owls coexist happily alongside us, accepting tractor and chainsaw noise, passing walkers, children water-fighting on the trampoline below them. Their needs are simple: love, noticing and accommodation is the key.