legends · 4 min read ·
Intake Book
A wildlife rescue's intake book records a barn owl that lays rings from the dead on the cage floor.
**Hallin Wildlife Rescue — Intake Book (Volunteer coordinator: P. Ames)**
*Date, species, finder, condition, treatment, outcome.*
**1 Oct.** Hedgehog, adult. Found in a garden. Underweight (310 g). Fed. Released 14 Oct.
**4 Oct.** Tawny owl, adult. Found by roadside. Wing damage. Splinted. Ongoing.
**9 Oct.** Fox cub. Found in a hay barn. Warm, hungry. Fed. Healthy.
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**12 Oct. · Barn owl, adult female.** Finder: a Mr. Lowther, who left her in a cardboard box at the door at 06:00 and drove off. No contact details. No note. Condition: alert, uninjured on examination, weight 290 g, plumage in perfect condition. Odd.
*Notes: her eyes follow me with a steadiness I haven't seen in an owl. She does not shrink from handling. She holds her head at an angle. I wonder if she is blind.*
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**13 Oct.** Barn owl. She has eaten nothing. She watches from the perch. Vet checked her over: no fault. The vet said she was in better health than any owl he had examined.
**14 Oct.** I found something on the floor of the cage this morning. A ring. A plain gold band. It was lying in the straw under the perch, bright, as if recently polished. I cleaned it with a cloth and read the inside. A date, and a pair of initials. *H.A. to M.A., 1961.*
I took it to the office and put it in an envelope. I did not think the owl had swallowed it. I did not think she had hidden it. I thought only that someone had left it, a keeper, and that I should write to them.
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**15 Oct.** A second ring this morning. A silver one, thin, with a small garnet. **17 Oct.** A third: a wedding band, white gold. **19 Oct.** A fourth.
Each one lies in the straw under the perch. None has been regurgitated. They are not in a pellet. They are clean, dry and bright, and they have been put there with care.
I asked the vet. He said that owls can eat what they like but cannot pass a ring. He said: "I'd call it a collection."
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**20 Oct.** Seven rings in the cage. I laid them on a cloth on the desk. They are all lovers' rings. All inscribed. I cross-checked the dates and the initials against the parish records. They are all from Hallin. They are all rings buried with the dead.
I rang the vicar. He said that some graves had been disturbed by the flood in the spring. The churchyard lies below the level of the beck. He said the council had replaced the soil, and that no remains had been recovered.
I said: "The rings have been." He said he would look into it.
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**22 Oct.** I stayed late with the owl. I sat on the floor in front of her cage with a torch. At about eleven she dropped from the perch, onto the floor of the cage. She opened her wings, slowly, as if testing them. Then she bent her head and began to scratch at the straw.
She scratched for a long time. She was not feeding. She was digging, in the way an owl does not dig, and out of the straw, one at a time, she drew a ring. She laid it out on the floor, in a row with the others. Then she looked up at me.
I understood that she was showing me.
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**24 Oct.** Eleven rings. I wrote to the vicar. He replied: *Let her go.*
I have carried the cage out to the paddock. It is evening and clear. The owl is on the perch, watching the sky. The rings are in an envelope in my pocket. I opened the cage door. She did not move.
Then she turned her head, as owls do, a long, smooth turn, nearly all the way round. She looked at me with great, dark, unblinking eyes, and I saw in them a small clear reflection of the paddock, and the church beyond it, and in the churchyard a great many people standing very close together under the yews.
She opened her wings. She rose without sound. She flew across the field, low, towards the church, and the people parted to let her through.
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**Intake Book, 25 Oct**
*Barn owl, adult female. Released. Outcome: not recorded.*
*Note: the envelope of rings was returned to me this morning. It was lying on my desk, closed. Inside there were no rings. There was a single feather, white, and a folded sheet torn from the parish register, with a column of names in an old hand. Beside each name, a tick. The last name on the list was left blank. There was a space for a tick next to it. It was left open for mine.*