Williamson's Weekly Nature Notes- September 24 2008
THE barn owl used to be the commonest owl in the county. That was in 1891 and was the opinion of William Borrer, descendant of the famous botanist William Borrer of Henfield.
By 1938 John Walpole-Bond agreed that it may have been so once, but not now. Seventy years on today the idea of barn owls being as numerous as tawny owls is a distant dream. About 100 pairs of barn owls live in East and West Sussex.