Daytime canoodling

Three days of absence, no idea where he’s been (perhaps on his stag weekend) and we were getting a bit worried, but he’s back and they’re back busy preening each other and waiting out the latest stormy weather.

In this clip they get spooked by something outside and he goes out to sort it out – there’s a bit of noise and he soon comes back and they carry on as before.

What a guy!

Count the owls

One, two, and er, three! We have a new owl, who has suddenly appeared in the old nest box. Not sure where it’s come from, possibly a refugee from the recent storms. It’s sheltering in the box that the other owls were planning to use as a nest (rather than a roost), so we’re not sure how this is going to turn out.

Meditating the day away

It looks like the owls are settling in to the new nest box during the day, perhaps their old roosts have been damaged by the recent storms. There’s another storm coming, but tonight should be dry so plenty of opportunity to hunt.

This is the male, the female is tucked down just out of the picture.

Cross owl

Something spooked one of the owls today while they were sleeping out the storm. You can hear the wind then banging on the nest box, perhaps twigs but more likely a squirrel, who wisely backed off (remember what happened to Squirrel Nutkin!).

Crash!

Not a particularly elegant entry to the nest box, but here’s one of the barn owls settling in for a rest, oddly in the middle of the day, and in the old nest box which they’ve only been using at night.