A blog to share barn owl and other wildlife and general news about the Retreat and its environment.
Tawny owl and kestrel using a security light as a perch
13. February 2026, Wildlife
We have noticed a lot of droppings below some of our motion-sensitive PIR floodlights. This light has a camera just above it and we often get sight of what is perching there.
Often it is a kestrel, choosing which light to roost on overnight depending the direction of the wind and rain. On another occasion we caught a tawny owl perching there.
Read the rest of the article: Tawny owl and kestrel using a security light as a perch
Female kestrel perching on a snowy barn owl box
04. January 2026, Wildlife
The kestrels don't migrate elsewhere for winter and are here all year round.
Unlike the barn owls who can hunt voles through a blanket of snow, kestrels can have difficulty finding food when it is snowy. They will sometimes attack barn owls in the air who are carrying prey, and sometimes they will succeed in stealing the food from the owl.
Female kestrel launches from the barn owl box
30. August 2025, Wildlife
A female kestrel visits the barn owl nest box
16. March 2024, Wildlife
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.
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 the rest of the article: Kestrel swoops on stock dove, twice in a few seconds
