Category: Barn Owls

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.

The two barn owlets are beginning to loose their fluffy covering and reveal their new feathers. Not long before they’ll be trying to get out of the nest box. A combination of the adults and us bringing them food seems to be working.

Hunting is not going well for the barn owls, with the father seldom seen and the mother often returning without food. There are just two owlets now and we have started to supplement their food to keep them going. Not an easy decision: should we leave these wild animals alone?

There are now four hungry noisy pink wriggly things for the female barn owl to feed. That field vole won’t last long.

The barn owl mum has to multitask, keeping the three owlets under control while sitting on the two remaining eggs, holding dinner (a mouse caught during the night) under a claw while pulling it apart with her beak to feed the hungry pink wrigglers. It won’t be long before they can each down a whole mouse themselves, but in the meantime it’s hard work for the mum. We’re not sure where the dad is: if he’s not around then it will be hard for her to provide enough food for the growing brood on her own..

Two eggs have hatched so far and the little pink scrawny owlets appear to be doing well. Three eggs to go (we didn’t realise there were five!).

The male has clearly learned how to do things right, as the female has just laid her first egg which she is now tenderly caring for.

The male barn owl is a little inexperienced. It’s good he brings back some food for the female but he has to learn to put it down before he can get on with the business of making little owls.

Extra camera fitted on ledge to try to read the leg ring number on one of the owls. Let’s see if it works…

Success! We now know the whole leg ring number and have identified the barn owl having hatched last year at a nesting site only about four miles from us.

The barn owls are at it already and there’s no doubt which one is the male. Several times a day too, so at this rate we should be seeing the first egg in a few days.

It’s now getting a little confusing. Today there are two owls in the nest box but one of them doesn’t have a ring on its leg so isn’t one of the two owls who have been visiting this week. So we now have at least three owls.

The two owls who have each been visiting the nest box seem to know each other a little better than we thought. They’re actually a pair and clearly like the nest box so fingers crossed that they settle in and do what owls do in spring!

The new owl has settled in for the day and has time to bring up an owl ‘pellet’. This is perfectly normal behaviour: it’s the undigestible remains of its last meal (such as a field vole or mouse). If the owl stays, within a few weeks the bottom of the nest box will disappear under a thick layer of these pellets. Lovely!

After a few weeks of an empty nest we had a visitor last night. Though a brief appearance, it was long enough to not only see the tag on the owl’s leg but also read its number, so hopefully we’ll know whether it is one of our previous owls or a new one. If it is new we’ll find out where it’s come from!

Two days later and another owl appears in the nest box. This one also ringed on the same leg but the number is different. Unfortunately we can’t read the whole number so won’t be able to tell where it’s come from.

Finally we have a working hootycam (after the old ones were disabled by a squirrel), but an empty nest box and looks like it has been empty for a while. Plenty of time though: it wasn’t until March last year that barn owls first appeared.

After a few weeks of no cameras in the nest box (thanks to something nibbling the cables up in the tree) we have fixed the technical issues and now have a good view of the inside of the nest box, where the new barn owl is settling in for the winter. She (see the black dots on her front) isn’t ringed and doesn’t look like our previous owls, so is likely new to the area.

The black blob on the bottom of the nest box is a fresh barn owl pellet and the first sign that an owl is around and might be interested in settling in.

A search back through the nest box camera’s saved clips reveals all. The barn owl has been visiting for a couple of days and even rested all day on Friday. We don’t know if it’s male or female, or if it is one of the adults from this year (it is unlikely to be any of the fledglings). We can’t see if it is ringed yet either. Will let you know more when we do.

Almost exactly to the day a barn owl starts to visit the nest box. It was 1 October when we first spotted one last year https://tiptonscroft.org.uk/blog/new-tenant/.

The youngest owlet has finally dispersed and the nest box is now empty. It’s been a successful year and there are now three new barn owls somewhere out there in the Shropshire countryside. This brings our total owls bred to 11 since we started in 2018.

The nest box shouldn’t be empty for long, but hopefully we have enough time to clean it out and make any repairs needed before another (or possibly the same) couple of barn owls settle in.

Three great tits take an interest in the empty nest box.

The owlets have spent the past few days gaining their independence and the older two have now left the nest box and dispersed, to who knows where, as they do at this age. The youngest is still here and still being fed by the adult female, but it won’t be long before he too will fly off into the distance.

The owlets at twelve weeks old

All three owlets are now learning to fly. The oldest is 9 weeks old and as a result the most competent, but as you can see, all three need a little more training. The adult female is still visiting at night to provide food but she will be coming back less often as she lets the youngsters fend for themselves.

Update 7 July. The owlets are well on their way to being independent. Their flying skills have improved and they’re now learing to hunt on their own too. It won’t be long before they will disperse and each settle up somewhere else. It will be a shame to see them go but that’s what they do.