Tipton's Croft

A field in Shropshire, England

Category: Birds

  • Eggs

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    The female’s sitting down a lot.

    She appears quit content

    Tada! This is why.

    One egg

    Over the next few days more appear.

    Two eggs
    Three eggs
    Five eggs
    Six eggs
    Seven eggs

    That should be all. It’s more than we normally have and they probably won’t all hatch, and the ones that do certainly won’t all survive.

  • New owls

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    Last month a lone female took a liking to the new owl box and quickly settled in. Not long after, she started bringing a fella back and they are now officially a couple. No signs of eggs yet but it shouldn’t be long.

    Two new barn owls: male on the left and female on the right

    19 March 2023. Having set up a third camera on the ledge we’ve managed to work out the leg ring numbers on each owl. The male is a young barn owl, hatched last year at a site five miles from here, and the female much older, almost five years old and has come from a site about nine miles away.

    Part of one leg ring (upside down but legible)
    One owl posing for a leg ring photo in front of the camera.

  • That’s no barn owl

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    A tawny owl takes an interest in the nest box but realises it’s already occupied.

  • New house

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    We’ve taken advantage of the nest box being empty over the winter to replace it with a new one, and have updated the cameras too. Now we wait…

    We didn’t have to wait long, two owl pellets appeared overnight: proof of an owl visiting to check out the new accommodation, which must smell strange to them as it’s so new.

    Two common toads and a smooth newt, 20 February 2024.

  • The fish-eater’s back

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    The visiting heron took advantage of us being away for a few days. A beautiful sight but oh, the poor fish!

  • Almost goodbye

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    The older owlet has already dispersed and the younger one comes back occasionally to the nest box, but doesn’t stay. The end to a difficult but successful breeding season.

  • First flight

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    This evening the younger owlet found enough courage to leap off the nest box ledge for the first time, though rather inelegantly flew straight into a bush. She made a good recovery though and has now flown off to shelter from the rain in a nearby oak tree.

  • All alone

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    The older owlet has already learnt to fly and last night spent most of her time away from the nest box, leaving her younger sister alone to sit on the ledge in the early morning light, before going for a solitary daytime sleep.

  • Hungry

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    Out in the early morning rain the two owlets wait without success for food. We haven’t seen the adult female for weeks and the adult male doesn’t always appear often and certainly not when it’s raining. So we feed the hungry wobble-heads until they can fend for themselves.

  • A room with a view

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    Both owlets are now coming out of the nest box in the early hours of the morning to view the big new world around them, with their typical wobble-head behaviour as they try to understand what it is all about.

  • The first glimpse of the world outside

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    The older owlet, now about seven weeks old, manages to get up to the entrance to the nest box to have a look out, with the typical wobbly head trying to make sense of what she can see.

  • Owl check-up time

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    The owlets are about 51 days old so time for a weighing, measuring and ringing by owl expert John Lightfoot from the Shropshire Barn Owl Group. This year we have two females, doing well though one rather under weight. They still have lots of ‘baby’ fluff but are rapidly shedding this to reveal their new feathers which they’ll be using soon as they venture out of the nest box.