God's Own Clay Home Page

THIS IS A SITE about a small corner of the Weald of Kent somewhere between Biddenden, Benenden and Rolvenden. It's supposed to be about natural history, but just now it's mainly about Tawny Owls because our local owls were the main reason for starting the site in the first place. The area covers about six square miles, extending from a band of forest and woodland in the north to a more open area of fields, orchards and smaller woodland patches in the south, much as in the photo above. For the most part it's a quiet, secluded area as, apart from one rather busy road, the only access is by narrow country lanes or on foot.

The emphasis of the site's on sound recordings, as that's what I mainly do. Dig around in the Tawny Owls or Birds sections for some quite good, long mp3 samples. There's an extensive item on nestboxes in the Tawny Owls section too (see the Tawny Owls main page for a guide to the contents of this section). The Birds and Insects sections are slowly getting added to. Equipment lists what I use, with the microphones section offering musical samples recorded to compare different mics.

Not all the owls on this site are native to Kent! Left, a Bengal Eagle Owl from a local owl sanctuary; middle, a juvenile Fraser's Eagle Owl featured in the Owl Gallery; and right, a young Tawny Owl in flight — she is from Kent. She's also the owl flying across the mast pic at the top, where the owl on the right is her mother.

The Quck Guide to the site is just that, and the site structure is shown in tree form on the

Site Map page. Either is a useful starting point.

Broadband is essential to enjoy the recordings as many of the mp3 files are 1 Mb plus. Please respect my copyright on pics and recordings. You're welcome to download them for use on a personal computer or iPod. Enquiries about any other uses should be sent to the email address given below.

It's a little late in the day to start making a nest box, but this site has all sorts of suggestions and plans for nicer boxes than you'll find on sale in the UK. On the left is a Dutch-designed letterbox that I've just completed (well, two of them!).

Construction details and photos on this page in the Nestbox section.

March 2008 — and she's back

After a year off, Mrs Owl has decided to have another go. The story begins here: Tawny Owl Nesting Diary 2008. That's her on the left, and she's shown in full at the top right of this page. She and hubby are wild local tawnies. We've known her now for four years — she's a total sweetie.