Barn Owls - 21st June 2024

 A run around about a third of our barn situated boxes brought three with owlet families, including one with 5, then two recaptures of adult birds leaving the box or barn. There were of course the empty boxes, some with pigeons and even one box that has dropped to the floor since last year.

There was also an unexpected bonus at the end of the day, almost tripped over and picked up by hand, a young almost fledged Oystercatcher. Brood in the same farmyard as last year.

Recaptured (female with 3 owlets)

Adding the colour code

Oystercatcher C00

Totals:

3 boxes containing 2, 3 & 5 young Barn Owls all of a ringable age.

2 recaptured adult Barn Owls

1 Oystercatcher (age 1)

Barn Owls - 7th July 2023

 A first trip round to some of the boxes that we've taken over from JM, locating the boxes and constructing a few routes to make the visits as efficiently as possible. It was clear, as we checked each box, that this is a difficult year with most boxes with young having just two and in one case only one youngster. There are a couple of boxes that need call backs due to the small size of the pulli so we hope they continue to develop well.

One of 7 pulli ringed today

We were able to catch three adults with a hand net as they left their boxes,  and two had been ringed as pulli by JM last year.

This adult received a ring as she was captured in a hand net before the box was checked.

We also managed to clean up at the sewage works after a call to ring the one surviving youngster. We hope to have a darvic ringing project in place for next year's chicks.

Oystercatcher young

All ringing and monitoring undertaken with appropriate schedule 1 licence in place.

Fakenham Sewageworks

Oystercatcher - 1

Sandringham Estate

Barn Owl -8 new (7 pulli and 1 adult) with 2 retraps   

Barn Owls in Cambridgeshire - 7th July 2017

We hadn't seen PW for a long while and as he's been kind enough to take WA and LON  out, giving them the benefit of his experience, we arranged to help him with some of the boxes most difficult to access.

We had a very successful tour around -

Box one, roosting adult not captured.

Box two, one adult male (unusual as normally females remain with owlets) and one young Barn Owl.

Box three, two young Barn Owls

Boxes four (aged and fallen from its mounting) and five (evidence of fledged Stock Doves) paired boxes.

Box four was cleared of all the sticks (old Jackdaw nest)
and taken to be renovated before re-siting.

There are three reasons for pairing boxes a) males will use the second for roosting after eggs hatch b) where Kestrels compete with Barn Owls, there is one for each pair and c) providing the second box has not been occupied a second clutch is often laid in the other box.

Box six two young

Box seven three young Kestrels

Box eight two young Barn Owls

Measuring P7 for length of emerged feather and an indication of age

Box nine two young Barn Owls

 Another barn sited Barn Owl 'des res'

A well grown young female Barn Owl

Box ten four young Barn Owls

The brood mode is two this year although we had one box with four healthy young. The good news is that some boxes had young extremely close to fledging, in fact, if not checked today may well have gone without being measured, recorded and ringed. So the owls clearly got off to a flying start this year, meaning some will fledge before boxes are checked (PW and his team look after a lot of boxes over a wide area), but there will be a good chance of any second broods fledging early in October giving a better chance of survival in their first winter.

Totals - 15

Kestrel - 3 pullus
Barn Owl - 1 adult male and 11 pullus