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.

We thought we had lost one of the owlets, but today we got a clear view of them and clearly all six are still there :)

Unfortunately we have lost the youngest owlet, the one that hatched last Sunday. This morning the female owl pulled out the small corpse from underneath her. So now there are five.

Fortunately in this area there is a plentiful prey for them, and the male is hunting well and bringing prey to the female and the young. They should not suffer shortage of food which may otherwise be a common problem.

Of course this is how nature works. Our survival record has been good in the past, with four eggs in 2023 and 2025 (no nesting in 2024), and four hatchings led to four successful fledgings in each case. (The typical survival rate from hatching to fledging is more like 40-50%)

• 2023 fledglings
• 2025 fledglings

PS see the update - the sixth owlet has been found!!

Less than half a day following the fifth hatching, the sixth and final barn owl egg has also hatched.

The video shows how the female owl stepped to one side for a stretch this morning, giving us a view of a mass of wriggling pink owlets. I think there are six there but they are difficult to count.

The oldest owlet (11 days old) is to the right, is beginning to develop white fluff, and is also seen exercising its winglets. On the left the next oldest is also stretching its winglets.

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 female barn owl stepped aside for a stretch a few times today, allowing us a better view of the four barn owlets.

On the video (on youTube) you can see the wriggling of the pink blobby owlets.

Besides the two eggs yet to hatch you can also see some egg-shell fragments which are from yesterday's hatching.

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.

A second barn owlet has hatched around midday today.

Again the image is not very clear, but you can see there are now only four eggs, and to the right of the eggs there are two owlets, the newer one nearer the top of the image.

Lower down the photo there are some fragments of egg shell which the owl moved from underneath her about 50 minutes before this photo. She usually eats the shell fragments some time later.