A blog to share barn owl and other wildlife and general news about the Retreat and its environment.
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Magpies trying to steal prey from barn owl
26. May 2025, Wildlife
Other birds sometimes attack barn owls to try to steal their prey. Perhaps it is easier to do that than to catch prey themselves. Kestrels do that, sometimes successfully.
Here we see our nesting barn owl male mobbed by magpies as he returns to the nest box with a vole. He evaded them and dashed into the box to hand the prey to the female who needs food to feed to the four small owlets. For several minutes afterwards they both sounded warning hisses and the magpies went away and didn't return. But now the magpies know where they are so may make other attempts in future.
Watch the video on YouTube.
A stock dove attacks a barn owl roosting in the nest box
04. March 2025, Wildlife
Stock doves nested in our barn owl nest box (thereby excluding the owls) in 2022. Last year and again this year they are persistent in visiting the box hoping to find it empty.
We have a barn owl which roosts here most days (though occasionally misses a day). Today the doves came again, and entered the box to attack her.
The roosting barn owl promptly settled into defensive posture, back towards the corner of the box (for support?), standing on one leg leaving the other leg free to strike out with its long sharp claws.
In the full speed video it happens too quickly for you to see the leg strike, but keep watching and it is repeated in slow motion.
READ MORE: A stock dove attacks a barn owl roosting in the nest box
Kestrel swoops on stock dove, twice in a few seconds
11. July 2022, Wildlife
In 2022 stock doves took over our barn owl nest box, displacing our barn owls who were visiting the box but had not taken up residence for breeding.
A kestrel noticed the doves coming and going. One one video (three days after this one) we filmed a kestrel taking up position ready to swoop on the dove, and the dove diving under the box instead of entering it.
This video shows a female kestrel swooping down, claws out, trying to grab the dove, but the dove took sharp evasive action. The kestrel looped around and made another swoop four seconds later.
Six days later we found a wing of a dove, on the ground about ten feet from the nest box, surrounded by lots of feathers. It seems that the kestrel was persistent and succeeded. There had been two dove eggs in the box, one of which had just hatched, but the hatchling had died by the time we discovered the situation.
READ MORE: Kestrel swoops on stock dove, twice in a few seconds
