Thursday 20 January: Was woken at 4am last night by a strange sound outside the back of the house; after listening for a minute or two I decided it was worth a look and was amazed to see a large bird swoop across the garden and land on the chimney of the house in front. I ran upstairs to get my binoculars and, although only in silhouette, it was clearly an Eagle owl – it stayed there for about 10min before flying off, silently, in the direction of the castle. Listening to recorded calls this morning I would say it was a female. Not a bad village tick and presumably it means there is a pair nearby!