Hunters of the twilight: the red fox and the barn owl of the British countryside

As the light fades over the fields and hedgerows, the countryside quietly changes hands. The daytime birds fall silent, and a different shift comes on duty. A russet shape slips through a gap in the hedge, while somewhere over the rough grass a pale form drifts by on soundless wings. The hunters of the twilight have begun their rounds.

The red fox, master of adaptation

The red fox is Britain's most widespread wild carnivore, and one of its most adaptable. It makes a living almost everywhere, from remote mountains and marshes to farmland, leafy suburbs and the heart of our busiest cities. Few wild mammals have proved so thoroughly at home alongside people.

Much of that success comes down to its varied appetite. The fox is a true omnivore, taking voles, mice, rabbits and birds, but also earthworms, beetles, berries and whatever scraps it can find. With sharp hearing and a keen nose, it hunts mainly at dusk and through the night, listening for the faintest rustle in the grass.

In recent decades the fox has become a familiar city dweller, thriving among our streets and gardens. Yet in the countryside its story is different: surveys suggest the rural fox population fell by almost half, some forty-eight percent, between 1995 and 2022. Fox hunting with hounds, meanwhile, was made illegal under the Hunting Act of 2004.

The barn owl, ghost of the fields

Sharing the same twilight is one of our most beautiful birds, the barn owl. With its pale, heart-shaped face and golden, softly speckled wings, it seems to glow in the half light as it quarters slowly back and forth over meadows and field edges in search of prey.

The barn owl is a master of silence. The soft, fringed edges of its feathers muffle the sound of its wingbeats, letting it drift almost noiselessly above the grass. It hunts small mammals, above all voles, and finds them largely by sound, pinpointing the tiniest squeak or rustle even in near-total darkness.

This way of life ties the owl closely to traditional farmland. It needs rough, tussocky grassland where voles are plentiful, together with quiet nest sites in old barns, hollow trees or nest boxes. Where these disappear beneath tidy fields and modern buildings, the barn owl quickly begins to struggle.

Shared threats, shared countryside

For all their differences, the fox and the owl share both a landscape and a set of dangers. One of the gravest for the barn owl is poison: owls that eat rats and mice killed by powerful modern rodenticides can themselves be fatally poisoned, a hidden threat passed quietly up the food chain.

Both animals also live in the shadow of how we choose to manage the land. The barn owl's fortunes have been lifted in recent decades by conservation work, especially the widespread putting up of nest boxes. The fox, often persecuted, survives largely thanks to its own adaptability and cunning instead.

Predators that keep the balance

As predators, both play a valuable part in keeping the countryside in balance. By preying on rodents and rabbits, they help hold the numbers of these animals in check, a free service that a healthy landscape quietly depends upon. Remove such hunters, and the whole web of life can slip out of kilter.

They stir something in us, too. The fox has long been a symbol of cunning and resourcefulness, while the barn owl, ghostly and silent, has haunted our folklore for centuries. Both remind us that even in a crowded, modern country, wildness still moves through the dusk just beyond our doors.

Guardians of the dusk

Keeping these hunters on the land is well within our power. Protecting hedgerows and rough grassland, leaving space for voles and nest sites, and turning away from the strongest poisons all help. The British countryside is immeasurably richer for the fox's silhouette at dusk and the owl's silent glide across the field.