Surprise

[flossyplops]

What a surprise it was to find we had four Barn Owl babies in my home made barn owl box. Its only the second summer its been up and it was only by chance that we spotted some adult activity at it. They were back and forth with rodents so we guessed there must be young in there then not long after heard the hissing of the owlets wanting to be fed. They are now part of the Essex wildlife Barn Owl conservation scheme and were ringed about three weeks ago. All have fledged but are still using the box as a base to get fed in the evenings. The pics on here are from one of our strips of setaside on the farm which is their fave hunting ground. All pics are quite big crops especially the flying one. The pic of the little ones was just after they had been ringed. I'd never seen Barn Owls on our farm before and only ever seen one in the village late at night so this lot were a huge surprise, hopefully they will use the same box next year and the land they are on will be farmed with them in mind

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[gramps]

What a lovely surprise! - Love the last

 

[flossyplops]

Thanks Gramps, the ringing was done very quickly with no fuss from the Owls

 

[Darren h]

Nice pics, great to see four healthy looking chicks.

 

[the black fox]

superb well done

 

[Cheffievrs]

Fantastic Heidi, it seems we are having good numbers of barn owls this year.. :thumb: Your not any where near Maldon are you..?

 

[Lemaildetom]

Superb, you must be pretty chuffed about this!

 

[pooley]

Great result - nice one

 

[flossyplops]

Thanks for your replies, I am chuffed we have the Barn Owls on the farm, Jason we are about 23 miles from Maldon in the Colchester direction.