PARAMOTOR pilots spotted at Barbury Castle are threatening the peace of rare owls.

Amateur nature photographer Carol Gadd was taking pictures of short-eared owls when she noticed three low-flying powered paragliders around the beauty spot.

The 55-year-old said: “I was at Barbury Castle hoping to see some short-eared owls to photograph and as I was photographing them,

"I was aware that paramotors were around in the area, making a lot of noise, and flying too low.

“They flew directly towards the owls and myself, and one of them landed on Barbury Castle. There were walkers up there because it’s always quite busy on Sunday.”

Barbury Castle is registered with the Civil Aviation Authority as a non-landing/flying area.

Carol added: “They scared the owls and they [owls] ran away on that occasion, so my concern was if they keep doing that, the owl would move on and won’t come back.

“There’s only about four of them but they return in the winter.

"The previous year they haven’t come because of disturbance.”

Short-eared owls are winter birds that come to find refuge in the Wiltshire countryside.

Carol, who lives in Royal Wootton Bassett, is currently in the process of reporting it to the aviation authority.

“They are not supposed to fly below 500 feet and obviously they were, and I can work this out from my camera zoom,” Carol said.

“It’s shocking and upsetting. It is such a thing to witness these birds flying and hunting and it would be such a loss to the area.

“It’s a quite a special thing to see somebody be so disrespectful of people and the natural environment.”

Swindon Borough Council owns the site and is planning on increasing the number of ranger patrols in the area.

A council spokesman added: “Barbury Castle is designated as a local nature reserve and we would kindly ask people to respect the wildlife, as most visitors routinely do.”

Dr Gary Mantle MBE, chief executive of the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, said: “They are a special bird as they are the owl species most likely to be seen flying during the day, and this also makes them particularly vulnerable to being disturbed by human activity.

“Barbury Castle is an area particularly favoured by these birds, so we’d encourage anyone using Paramotors or similar equipment to use other airspaces and take all possible measures to avoid disturbing local wildlife.”