Wildlife and general news blog about the Retreat and its environment

The smallest of the six barn owlets (currently 26 days old) seems tiny compared to its elder siblings. You might think it is underfed, and perhaps it is underfed due to elder siblings stealings its food.

Certainly, bigger owlets stealing food from smaller siblings does happen. But the parents seem aware of this. In this video the parent (probably the female) specifically passes food to the smallest owlet. This was after all the others have been fed over the previous couple of hours, and so the others were not hungry and they allowed the little one to eat its food undisturbed.

Next problem is how to eat a vole that is larger than itself! Well, anacondas and pythons can swallow deer, and owlets work on the same principle of swallowing voles whole. It took it several minutes to size up the task, then about 7 minutes after receiving the vole it finally managed to ingest the whole vole, head first.