My eldest and I are having great fun this winter "holiday" looking for and finding barn owls in the local countryside at dusk.

Yesterday was no exception - and our latest barn owl performed marvellously in front of us, silently quartering over the winter stubble field in the gloom as we crouched down, holding our breath(s).

Also... and it's worth noting this - yesterday, my eldest boy spotted the owl first - if it wasn't for him I may well have missed it! (My eyes and awareness are legendary generally... but I'm not superhuman and I LOVE IT when he sees something before me - it means I'm training him to "use his eyes" (a nod to long-standing readers of this blog there) well).

At dusk yesterday we also watched three roe deer and the usual big covey(s) of red-legged partridge and roosting jackdaws and two v-formation skeins of geese flying just over our heads to their roosts in a quite stunning sunset.

Then there were the rabbits of course and the tawny owls waking up and proclaiming their territories.

What we DIDN'T expect to see on the 30th December though... were BATS.

My eldest is 7 years old so is always in bed when bats tend to emerge (after dusk in the spring, summer and autumn) and told me last night that he'd never seen a bat before (despite us being luck enough to have TWO pips hunt in our garden each dusk during the typical "bat season").

Yesterday though, we watched two bats (common or soprano pips) hunt around a local church and then saw another on our walk back from watching the barn owl a few miles away.

Three bats out in the day (effectively) and in the winter (definitely).

Mad. Or... *ahem* batty?

I reported this as a footnote to my latest barn owl report on the "Berks bird sightings" website and a local young birdwatcher kindly emailed me to tell me that he had seen two soprano pips at Windsor Great Park on the same day (yesterday).

Whether this is a sign of global warming or not is debatable - but it certainly is a sign of a very mild couple of days in late December and a few hungry local bats hoovering up the odd winter moth and gnat that is around....

Happy 2020, grapple fans.

Below. Moon. Belfry. Venus. (last night).