Not a breath of wind as we set off. Evening was deepening; the last shift of high, screaming swifts were clocking off for the day. I was showing a good Glaswegian friend of ours round my local “patch”. Shadows paved the cartway. The barley was a deep gold. The bellow of a shorthorn cow followed us over the darkling bridle­way. I was explaining the chances of seeing a fox, or a hedgehog, or some deer, when the barn owl appeared. Easy enough to write those words but it was the first time, in 15 years of living here, that I’d seen one while on foot. To begin with, it was little more than a moth fluttering along the wood edge. Slowly it grew into a white handkerchief waved by a hidden hand, then a spectral seagull, before finally becoming a barn owl. Silent wings lifted