Category: Barn Owls

The hootlets are getting more boisterous and never seem to sleep. The biggest one, here, can now open its eyes.

Day 15. The female is now going out hunting for the hootlets but they’re still too small to feed themselves so she has cut up their meal and feed bits of field vole to each of them. Yum!

Day 13. Our first daytime glimpse of one of the hatchlings, trying to escape from the mum. As the days go by the noisy bundle of fluff is getting bigger and harder for her to keep on top of it.

Day 12. Four hootlets, getting noisier and more boisterous as they get bigger. The mother is leaving the nest from time to time during the night, now that it is warmer and the owlets are developing their owl downy insulation.

The fourth owl (top right of the group) is very small in comparison as it was the last to hatch. It may well not survive as the adults would struggle to feed all four.

Day 10. The female Barn Owl briefly left the nest box last night so we had a glimpse of the new hoots – three all lying in a bundle (one only just in view). A good night hunting – three field voles brought back by the male so hungy mouths fed.

Day 9. We don’t know! At least three but the female isn’t moving from over them so we can’t see. They’re certainly making a lot of noise. Here she is chittering away to them while dad keeps an eye out.

Day 6. All going according to plan.

Day 3. The female briefly left the nest last night, revealing the scrawny little two day old hatchling. Turn up the volume to hear it calling for her to return, which she duly does.

The male has been spending most of the nights hunting for his new family, successfully judging by the field voles lying on the left in the nest box.

Day 1. It’s been a long month of waiting, but this morning we had our first barn owl hatching. Both mother and baby are doing fine (father is wisely staying well out of it as you can see).

No view of the baby but turn up the volume and you can hear the egg cracking open and (we think) its first high-pitched call as the mother chatters to it.

The female barn owl carefully steps around the eggs, then settles down next to the male: turn up the volume to hear the gentle chittering.

All going well, with the male hunting well at night in the good weather.

Three eggs so far, the owls are doing well with good hunting thanks to the good weather at night.

The female can’t go hunting now, so the male does it for her, bringing back a nice fat field vole, but expects and gets something in return: but he’s so keen he doesn’t even wait for her to have her meal first.

(warning: scenes of a noisy and graphic nature!)

At last the two barn owls have done what comes naturally and we now have two eggs in the nest box. Hopefully some more to come over the next few days, then a month of waiting before the first one hatches. At least something good is going on at the moment!

The two barn owls are spending a lazy Sunday in the old nest box. They’re staying in the old nest box more now, hopefully a sign that they’ve chosen it as their nesting site this year.

Our refugee barn owl seems to have moved on, and the two love birds (geddit?!) have moved back into the old nest box. Unfortunately the empty nest box is being eyed up by a jackdaw, though fortunately no signs of nesting in it yet.

• 

• 

A quick sort through our photo database reveals three of our favourite owl photos.

• 

• 

• 

The refugee has been making a habit of coming out and sitting on the ledge a few minutes before dusk, just perfect for a proper camera shot from the hide. Here he is in all his glory, only, erm, he is actually (we think) a she – the black spots on the flanks are usually only on the female.

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.