Peak District Retreat Blog: Wildlife and general news about the Retreat and its environment

Unfortunately we have lost the youngest owlet, the one that hatched last Sunday. This morning the female owl pulled out the small corpse from underneath her. So now there are five.

Fortunately in this area there is a plentiful prey for them, and the male is hunting well and bringing prey to the female and the young. They should not suffer shortage of food which may otherwise be a common problem.

Of course this is how nature works. Our survival record has been good in the past, with four eggs in 2023 and 2025 (no nesting in 2024), and four hatchings led to four successful fledgings in each case. (The typical survival rate from hatching to fledging is more like 40-50%)

• 2023 fledglings
• 2025 fledglings

Less than half a day following the fifth hatching, the sixth and final barn owl egg has also hatched.

The video shows how the female owl stepped to one side for a stretch this morning, giving us a view of a mass of wriggling pink owlets. I think there are six there but they are difficult to count.

The oldest owlet (11 days old) is to the right, is beginning to develop white fluff, and is also seen exercising its winglets. On the left the next oldest is also stretching its winglets.

The fifth barn owlet has hatched.

We've not been able to see the owlet yet, but the female barn owl has been clearing shell debris from underneath her.

We'll try to add a photo of the fifth owlet tomorrow, once we have had a view of it.

The female barn owl stepped aside for a stretch a few times today, allowing us a better view of the four barn owlets.

On the video (on youTube) you can see the wriggling of the pink blobby owlets.

Besides the two eggs yet to hatch you can also see some egg-shell fragments which are from yesterday's hatching.

The fourth barn owl egg has hatched.

Near the top of the photo there is a half-shell from the recent hatching. There are two eggs remaining to hatch over the next few days.

There is enough light this morning to see colour inside the box, so you can see the pink blobbiness of the owlets - the white fluff will come later. It is hard to distinguish the four separately but there are four there.

This morning we have a third hatchling.

Hatching seemed to occur around 7am; at 7:25 am the female barn owl was removing pieces of shell from underneath her, and then eating them.

The male owl seems to be doing a good job of hunting every night, leaving the female barn owl with sufficient prey to sustain her and the owlets throughout the day.

A second barn owlet has hatched around midday today.

Again the image is not very clear, but you can see there are now only four eggs, and to the right of the eggs there are two owlets, the newer one nearer the top of the image.

Lower down the photo there are some fragments of egg shell which the owl moved from underneath her about 50 minutes before this photo. She usually eats the shell fragments some time later.

The female barn owl left the box for about 90 seconds, giving us a chance to zoom in and see the small movements of the day old barn owlet at top-right.

View the video on Youtube

It isn't very clear, but we appear to have our first barn owl hatchling of the season (the fuzzy pink blob in the photos).

Canada geese have returned this year to nest in precisely the same location as last year, on the bank of one of our ponds and near to our Green Tara statue.

The wider angle photo shows the general area of the pond. The zoomed in crop show the gander patrolling in the pond, with the female goose sitting on the nest on the far bank of the pond.

The gander is quite fierce so it is not possible to see how many eggs are in the nest. Just after the photo above was taken the gander rushed towards the female to chase away a crow that had landed nearby and was walking towards the nest, perhaps to steal eggs.

Three pairs of geese arrived several weeks ago. Initially they appeared to socialise but only this pair seemed to settle and nest. Thereafter, especially once the female started brooding the eggs, the presence of the others was not tolerated and the gander threatened and chased them. Even when they were 100m away they were chased, and we haven't seen them at all the last few days.