Category: Birds

Four of the eggs have now hatched and the mother manages to look after each of the tiny pink owlets as well as continuing to incubate the remaining two eggs.

The fourth owlet is just visible when the mother turns around.

The proud dad is sitting on the nest box keeping an eye out and chattering to the female and chicks inside.

Then off he goes back to his roost box for a rest from a night of hunting.

Last night the female left the nest box briefly to reveal two owlets who, intertwined start chittering loudly to each other. The female calls to them from outside the nest box but they won’t keep quiet until she comes back in and settles back down on them.

Even though the male stays away most of the time he does bring back a lot of food, as you can see from the larder on the floor of the nest box.

The first barn owl egg has hatched, just an hour or two ago. The mother is taking great care of the tiny pink owlet, chittering reassuringly to it as it chitters back. The other eggs should hatch one by one over the next few days.

The weather forecast is good and the male is doing his hunting duty. He is perhaps wisely staying away from the messy birthing business today.

A glimpse of a little newborn hootlet.

The two barn owls are doing well, the female spending all her time sitting on her clutch of six eggs and the male hunting for her during the night.

They’ve been sitting out the storm together for the past twenty four hours and will be getting hungry so hopefully the rain will ease off tonight to allow the male to do his duty.

The first egg is due to hatch on 28 May!

The male (in the centre) has a good hiss at something that lands on the nest box.

A surprise extra egg arrived last night, taking the clutch to 6 (one more than we had last year) and possibly a sign that the food supply is good at the moment. However, it does mean more mouths to feed when they hatch (though they won’t all hatch and those that do won’t all survive good food supply or not, such is nature).

Every hour or so the female gets up, turns around and moves back, has a good stretch then checks on her eggs before carefully sitting back down on them. Today she reveals a fifth addition to the clutch.

The male is spending most days roosting in the other nest box (about three hundred feet away) but usually flies over and joins her at some point during the day. He does tend to sit right down in the middle of the nest box taking up all the space: not sure she appreciates this!

The female briefly left the nest box last night, revealing four perfectly formed eggs. Perhaps one more to go and her clutch will be complete.

The male joined the female earlier today and they settled down for a quiet afternoon together. It wasn’t all rest for the female though: her flight feathers needed some maintenance, the male needed to be preened (whether he liked it or not) and of course the eggs needed checking. Only then could she have a nap.