Few animals have such a strong link with the water meadows at Thyme as the Barn Owl. Present all year around but only fleetingly seen or heard at dawn and dusk when they’re travelling to and from their roosting spots inside tree trunk hollows or the artificial nest boxes provided for them. It has been an unalloyed privilege to spend time in the meadows over the last few years and to regularly see the owls hunting over the rough grassland, quartering up and down the lengths of the fields, hovering momentarily with their head turned towards the earth, before dropping silently onto their unsuspecting prey.

Although the mornings are still cold, the wind has shifted to blow from the south bringing with it a wave of migratory birds that have been spending the winter in southern Europe or across the Sahara in West Africa.