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

Installed today, we now have a tawny owl nestbox hanging on a rowan tree.

As recommended it is facing east to avoid the prevailing SW wind and rain. The location is 80m north of the barn owl nestbox, which is on the rear-left of the house seen peeking over the horizon to the right of the rowan tree.

The design and dimensions of the are based on guides from the Barn Owl Trust and BTO.

This is installed too late for the current nesting season, but it will be available for the tawnies to notice it in the Autumn, when they are scouting potential nesting sites ready for early next year.

As a Barn owl returned to her roosting box she was followed by a Tawny owl.

She clearly considered this as a threat. She managed to get safely into the box and the tawny just flew away.

Watch the video on our youtube channel.

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”.

There's a lot of interest in this barn owl nest box. This evening, for the first time, we have seen a tawny owl inside the barn owl nest box, and its mate looked in too.

The video is best viewed with sound turned on.

Our first recording of a tawny owl.

We often hear tawny owls hooting, particularly over the last 18 months, but this is the first time we have caught one on camera at our barn owl nest box.

Our barn owl box is designed to suit barn owls, but other birds also show interest in it.