Night royalty.

So lucky to have Tawny Owls as neighbours for more than twenty years here at Dempsey Towers.

Most of the time they are disembodied calls, hoots and shrieks hidden in the night, or youngsters “branching”, but sometimes our mundane life path and their mystic world intersects.

At this time of year the owls are often vocal in broad daylight, hassled by Crows and Magpies, but they are most regal in the darkness.

Switched on the outside light to dump the empties in the bin tonight and there it was, perched above the feeders just a few metres away in the velvetty black.

So still. so alert – glaring at a passing moggy below (go for it – you could feed your family on that for three days), swivelling its head and twisting up to listen to a passing airliner jetting westwards in the night sky above.

Magnificent, mysterious, mute.

We were blessed with a five minute audience, then silently and with two wingbeats the night, and life, was empty again.