Category: Animals

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.

One more during the night.

Now the female is sitting on her eggs the male has to do all the hunting, but it’s going well so far (much better than last year). Here he is returning with a big fat field mouse.

The female has been a bit shy recently but today moved enough to reveal two lovely new eggs. The video shows how careful she is, delicately moving around while checking the eggs beneath her with her claws.

The female decided to move into the other nest box today, but didn’t bother to tell the male. Here he is having realised the old nest box is empty so he heads off down the field to find her, almost falling off the ledge as he does.

Yesterday something spooked the male, who launched himself out of the nest box without touching the ledge.

Here he is slowed down x 10.

We know this is the male because he then flew into the other nest box where the female was and mated with her. So clearly it is the female who is ringed, not the male.

We hadn’t noticed before but one of the owls is ringed. Two nights ago, one of the cameras on the other nest box recorded the male (we think) sitting on the ledge, clearly showing a ring on his right leg.

We’ll contact the Shropshire Barn Owl Group to let them know, as it may be an owl ringed by them. It would be fascinating to find out where he’s come from.