Country Life
By IAN NIALL
MANY an amateur naturalist, without much data, concludes that there are fewer hares in his locality or.for instance, more owls than there used to be. The professional, however, doesn't report on casual observation but puts in a lot of scientific work count- ing heads, clutches and so on, and produces some- thing factual and down to earth. His reports, how- ever, are inclined to be without colour and one enjoys much more the comments of the man from the moor- land farm who says there are more kestrels in a few square miles than he has ever seen before and sug- gests that the answer means more voles. Over the henrun at the cottage during the weekend a kestrel hovered. The bird isn't down as a chick-stealer 'in my book and his persistence argues that there are more mice on the ground than there used to be, as indeed there are. It has been a 'good' summer for small vermin. Dry weather favours mice, shrews and voles, I think. One might conclude that kestrels and
owls will flourish next year because of the availability of staple diet, for there are more mice in the grass, but greater numbers invariably carry more parasites and the death rate, we can say thankfully, will be adjusted in due course.
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