A wild field garden in Bomere Heath, Shropshire, England
Here’s the stock dove minding its own business on the nest when a jackdaw comes in and tries to get the eggs. Dove 1 Jackdaw 0.
Update 2020.04.11 Unfortunately the jackdaw eventually won when the dove decided enough was enough and abandoned the nest.
At last the new nest box is being used properly, but not by the owls. A squirrel has spent the past few days filling it with nest material and it has now laid an egg. Hopefully the first of a few (squirrels lay up to eight each year). Won’t be long before we have lots of cute little baby critters!
The frogs and toads have been busy as you can see: clump of frogspawn on the right, strings of toadspawn on the left.
Lots of frogspawn in the lake, and now happy toads all over the place too.
There have been no owls in the new nest box for a few days, so others have taken advantage of the opportunity. Not sure who’s going to win the bidding war for this desirable location
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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.
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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.
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A quick sort through our photo database reveals three of our favourite owl photos.
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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.
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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.
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Not directly related to Tipton’s Croft, though a reflection of how much rain we’ve had this winter, here are some photos we took of the recent floods.
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No, the owl’s not being sick, it’s bringing up a pellet (the undigested remains of its last meal, likely a field vole).