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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PaulD" data-source="post: 1750467" data-attributes="member: 11840">Archaeological evidenceOn page 9 of his paper Warburton writes “the Meare Lake Village Eagle Owl remains described in Stewart (2007) date back to c.2,000 years ago (Gray 1966), making them the latest known archaeological remains of an Eagle Owl in Britain.”However he fails to mention that Stewart said the Meare Lake record was “perhaps best regarded as unconfirmed. Even when first published, there was doubt over the identification of this specimen.”  The last confirmed record is the Demen’s Dale bird from about 10,000 to 5,500 years ago.Sea CrossingsRinging recoveries indicate that sea crossings are a rare event for Eagle Owls. The furthest movement I can trace for an Eagle Owl is 528km, but that was overland and it can’t be assumed that crossing the English Channel is “a mere stone’s throw.”The furthest movements I can trace for Little and Tawny Owls are 600 and 725km respectively. Nevertheless the Channel was enough of a barrier to prevent Little Owls colonising Britain and Tawny Owls have never even occurred in Ireland despite a sea crossing of only 20km at one point.Obviously these are different species, but it does prove that overland movements of hundreds of kilometres are no indication that a species will readily make sea crossings of even a few tens of kilometres.</blockquote>