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

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 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.

The fourth barn owl egg has hatched this morning.

The image attached from 10:42 shows half the shell discarded to the top-left of the female's head, with the owlet still sitting in the other half of the shell! (just below the female's head).

The male owl has not been resident in the box, but visits each night and brings voles to the female. On one or two nights his haul was a bit meagre, but most nights he is bringing enough to feed the female, and also to leave her some more which she tears up to feed to the small owlets.

Over the next few weeks they will grow quite rapidly and surprisingly soon they will be fed whole voles. By about four weeks they usually need larger supplies and the female starts going out to hunt as well.

The mother tries to brood them and keep them warm. She sits with her wings spread a little wider to cover them. As there are now four of them to contain, and those four will grow quite quickly, it is an impossible task and you will more and more often see escapees spilling out from under her, or popping up between her trunk and wings. Watch them on the live camera.

We wouldn't expect the owlets to leave the box until about 56 days after hatching. That is how long it takes for them to grow big enough to be able to fly up to the box entrance/exit, which is deliberately high up so that once they leave the box they can fly back to it instead of being stranded on the ground. (Unlike tawny owls, barn owl parents will ignore and not feed any young on the ground, so they would perish from starvation or predators if they are not strong enough to fly back to the box).