A Week on the Estate: Lookout Floored, Litter Picked & Tawny Tenants

Since January, Johnson & Smith of Lincoln have been working on the Lincoln Red Lookout on Brinkhill Road. This 18th-century farm building was semi-derelict but we were determined to preserve its heritage and character and give it a new lease of life as a highly desirable holiday let.

The Lookout will eventually benefit from modern amenities and efficiency measures including breathable wool insulation, but there were fundamental issues to attend to first including bracing and underpinning. Four months in, progress is looking good and the Lookout now boasts both a roof and a floor.

Finally, we’re thrilled to report that our owl boxes have sitting tenants: tawny owls (Strix aluco) with three healthy chicks. The chicks were ringed last week under licence from the British Trust for Ornithology. The adult female pictured was ringed in the same box in 2019.

It’s thought that tawny owl pairs rarely leave a good territory once they’ve established their claim. These agile hunters are almost exclusively nocturnal and thrive in both woodland and farmland where they take small mammals and birds as well as fish, frogs, bugs and worms. Juvenile tawny owls are responsible for the ‘k-wick’ and ‘hoo-hoo’ call and response, which is sometimes wrongly attributed to other species or owls in general. Tawny owls are most vocal in autumn when adults cut the apron strings, forcing juveniles to find and establish their own territories.

We’re chuffed that such discerning raptors regard our biodiverse woods and pastures as territory worth hooting over.

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