After our first broods fledged in May the farm yard was very quiet. Its always quieter during the summer months when the owls have plenty of food and rely upon me very little but this was extraordinarily quiet. I walked down night after night to an empty farm yard and I fed less than ever. There were also moult feathers everywhere which usually happens when the owls are finished with rearing owlets.
With the weather continuing so dry, I had resigned myself to the owls only producing one brood this year but then I heard reports from Yorkshire were one of the ringers was reporting a bumper year for Barn Owls. Sure enough, it transpired that by midsummer, the boxes in his part of the country were doing well. We had rain at the end of May which had made the grass grow. There was a harvest of hay after all and the grass field, ditches and field margins were lush and now a perfect habitat for the field voles too.I began to wonder if we might be lucky enough to have second broods after all.
I began watching more closely as midsummer came and went. The weather settled again giving us dry conditions by day and by night. Ever so slowly the owls returned and I scanned the sunset skies for their arrival but more importantly for their departures. If they had owlets I needed to see which boxes the adults were returning to. I soon determined that one pair were flying across the farm to the beehive pole box while another were heading into the combine shed. It wasn't long before I heard faint hissing from here. Now I was keen to find out which pair had nested where.
It was the ringed female that helped me piece all the clues together. She is the oldest female that has been with us since 2012 and I watched her fly in first and head over to the beehive box to her young family which meant that the darker female had used the far more superior site in the shed. This worried me. Our older female had reared both her broods out of the main area and away from the feeding stations. I couldn't help thinking that she was feeling her age and having to succumb to the will of the younger and stronger pair. As she had started waiting for me on the first grain store, I began to throw some food up onto a lower roof close by. She soon saw what I was doing and has waited here for me most nights ever since simply flying to the shed when I get too close but otherwise watching me through those ever trusting eyes with her head slightly tilted.
By mid October both broods had fledged. I never got over to the beehive box to watch but was amused to see the youngsters from the shed negotiating the gap in the door as they branched out into the big, wide world. I watched young owls peering at me from the grass field and willed them to fly to a safer vantage point. I was pleased to see them waiting in the nearby trees, screeching uncertainly at me as I arrived. I think they knew they should screech at me but also knew I was bringing supper and their confusion was audible! I offered my camera up to the gap in the door whilst I walked past on my walk with Max and saw them sleeping on the roof eaves or the wood in the furthermost corner. I finally watched them fly in for food themselves and felt satisfied that they would be sustained through the winter if they stayed close while they continued to gain their independence.
There have, of course, been anxious moments. There was the time one took its food over to the bridge and as I passed by it seemed to plummet downwards and I spent a good few worrying moments panning my torch along the river. There was the windy evening when one inexperienced owl flew too high and was carried out of the yard by a gust of wind. This week as I walked past one morning I whistled in daddy kestrel and one of the young owls came out of the shed, probably confused by the call I usually use after dark. It panicked and flew to the north of the house, right into the path of a buzzard which was waiting along the riverside. I didn't see it return but as my feeding times have been filled with half formed screeches and some rather insistent hissing I can only assume the buzzard never challenged this young interloper.
Rather pleasingly I have also had news of a third pair less than one hundred meters from the farm. A man nearby had situated an owl box and until this year had been unlucky. However he was thrilled to tell me that this spring he had a pair using the box and by midsummer he had heard faint hissing.Sure enough he had owlets fledge into his garden. Being situated so close I like to think that at least one of this pair were probably some of our youngsters from last year. It would explain why during the early part of this summer there was a disproportionate amount of screeching from the farm. I imagine these owls were popping back in for food and receiving a frosty welcome from their parents. The owner of the nest box was over the moon to have a successful pair on his land and asked me what he could do to help. |He has since erected a second nest box and the youngsters are now roosting here. He has cameras to watch them by and is feeding them just as we do at the farm. What a satisfying end after such a tricky start to the year.
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