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

Our first recording of a tawny owl.

We often hear tawny owls hooting, particularly over the last 18 months, but this is the first time we have caught one on camera at our barn owl nest box.

Our barn owl box is designed to suit barn owls, but other birds also show interest in it.

It snowed last night and the barn owl nest box was covered deep snow.

Fortunately no owls were trapped inside as the box was not inhabited last night.

A wren visited and perched on the mound of snow.

During 2024 there was no owl breeding in our barn owl nest box.

During the winter 2023/24 one owl (female we think) roosted in the box every single daytime for over 6 months, leaving at dusk to go hunting and returning around dawn. During that time we didn't see a second owl.

We might have expected to see them together as a pair from around Jan/Feb but still we saw a second owl on only a couple of occasions, and the female was roosting here less regularly, not being seen at all from May onwards for two to three months.

Perhaps the pair nested somewhere else this year. We saw more of them July/August, with some courting behaviour (see photos) but no nesting or breeding.

A female sparrowhawk visits the barn owl nest box.

We consider it a barn owl nest box, but other species are interested in it too.

This photo has a ghostly appearance but with an innocent explanation.

The see-through appearance is due to the camera's handling of motion not coping well-enough with this large fast-moving object. The camera ‘remembers’ the scenery behind the owl and repeats that instead of showing all of the owl that is actually there. 

A female kestrel visits the barn owl nest box and peeks in.

While a barn owl is roosting in the box, a female kestrel explores, including peeking into the box.

Barn owls and kestrels can be serious adversaries. Kestrels may attack barn owls on the wing in an attempt to steal their prey, and sometimes that is successful. Sometimes they fight, including to the death of one of them, over rights to a nesting space.

We can see the local red deer any time of year, but most frequently in the spring.

Sometimes we see them naked-eye in in the daytime, sometimes close and sometimes far away. We also catch them on wildlife/security cameras at night.

Here are a few such photos from different dates. Also a daytime video from a solar-powered camera mounted on a tree adjacent to a gully, and a night-time video of a herd of deer within 20 yards of our house.

2023 has been a successful year for our barn owls.

The pair settled into the box earlier in the year. Four eggs were laid, four eggs all hatched, and four owlets all grew and fledged. They are pictured here just after the youngest of them finally grew strong enough to fly up from the bottom of the deep nest box to get out of the entrance hole.

This success is despite the male seemingly not being a very diligent provider and rarely bringing prey for the young, with the burden of the feeding falling on the female.

We often see the brown hares exploring a 12 inch land drain which passes under our track.

Sometimes they exit the other end, circle around overground, and go through the pipe again, seemingly just playing! Sometimes, as on the attached video, they exit the far end, turn around, and come back to where they entered. And sometimes they back out, seemingly unable to turn around inside the pipe.

Their interest in the pipe is not too surprising as it is sometimes used as a den by other wildlife such as stoat, weasel, and mice.

An unexpected sighting.

An unusual bird to see in the UK, and particularly unusual to see it on moorland in December/January when they are usually found (if at all) on the coast.