Wildlife and general news blog about the Retreat and its environment

This evening I happend to step outside just at the time to see the female barn owl flying towards me. About 15 yards from me she dived into long grass in the field. She didn't reappear immediately, which suggested that she had caught some prey and did not need to continue the hunt. She rose a minute or two later and flew back to the nestbox.

I didn't have a camera with me to catch the dive, but a camera at the box recorded a nice sequence of her landing.

Click the button to see the rest of the photos…

A tawny brings its mouse prey to our barn owl nest box and perches with it on the ‘branch’ (a piece of timber installed to hold a camera but which is also popular with the owls as perching branch)

Our barn owlets have all dispersed and so the nest box is currently unoccupied. The tawny owl did not attempt to enter the box and flew away after about 30 seconds, but not before making a close up inspection of the camera on the “branch”.

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.

The male seems to have upped his game the last couple of days, and following the first hatching he has been bringing more prey to the nest box each night.

The female should not need to leave the box for hunting, which is important so that she can guard the eggs and young against intruders. (The stock doves have already visited again this morning, hoping to be able to take over the box for their nest).

She has been well fed overnight, and she still has at least five more voles lying on the floor of the box which she can eat herself and tear up to feed to the hatchling.