RAY Lowden visited the school with seven of his beautiful birds of prey from Kielder Birds of Prey Centre in Northumberland, and gave a presentation for the Year 6 children as part of their topic on woodland habitats.

Mr Lowden is a handler. He also rears birds, buying his owls when they are just young so he can hand-rear them, otherwise they would not let him touch them or go near them.

He explained that owls are silent in flight and their hearing is excellent. This enables them to catch their prey. Another thing he told the pupils was that the right ear was larger than the left, so the owls can hear all around them. Owls' ears are next to their eyes under their feathers.

There are six species of owl in Britain - the barn owl, tawny owl, little owl, short-eared owl, long-eared owl and the snowy owl. Fifteen years ago, there were 100,000 pairs - now there are only 5,000 pairs of barn owl, which proves they are endangered.

One of the birds Mr Lowden brought in was Dusk, a barn owl who was two-years-old, ate about two mice a day and weighed about 10oz. He was the first bird the children met and was the one they handled. Dusk had beautiful markings, and although his head looked fairly big, the skull was really only the size of a golf ball.

Barn owls can turn their heads 270 degrees because they have S-shaped bones in the neck which are filled with tiny air bubbles.

The next owl Mr Lowden talked about was a little owl called Bluebell who was seven-years-old, which is quite old for an owl. He weighed about 8oz. The little owl hunts during the day and has yellow eyes. It can eat small mice and voles. Ray showed the children some owl pellets. Owls usually swallow their prey whole, and because they are unable to digest bones and fur, they cough these up as a pellet. These are an indication of the owl's diet.

Then they moved on to the milky eagle owl called Sarah. With a wingspan of 1.5m of 4.5ft, she is the largest owl in Africa. She proved to be the most popular as well as the biggest. She weighed 2.5kg.

Mr Lowden showed the children a sakar falcon called Sable, which can fly at 100mph. She wore a hood for security and was raised in a different way from the owls so that she did not become imprinted. She had bells on her tail and foot because she was used for flying demonstrations, so Mr Lowden could tell where she was while she was flying.

Pupil, Katie Taggart, said, "It was great fun, and 1 even got to hold the barn owl."

The pupils agreed it was a very educational and enjoyable morning, and would recommend families to visit the owls at Kielder Bird of Prey Centre. Mr Lowden can be contacted on (01434) 250400.