A field in Shropshire, England
—
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.
Having eaten all it wanted, the swan has gone elsewhere. We now have a small moorhen visiting instead. Rather noisy for its size!
—
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).
A juvenile mute swan arrived today, quite bold and hungry, currently hoovering up the water crowfoot (which is a shame as it’s just started to flower). Lovely addition to the pond though.
—
Barn owl’s on the hunt, bats are up. Rural Shropshire.
—
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.
—
