Success for the National Trust

Dominic and I met Katie and Gabby at NT Slindon to see if the cleaned out owl boxes had attracted any owls this year.

We’d arranged to meet Jenna to check the Water Authority box so we headed there first. As Jenna opened the door Dominic noticed an owlet on the floor just inside and I saw one heading under a large tarpaulin, we quickly gathered these two up and checked them over. All was well.

One of the escapees!

Dominic shimmied up the ladder to check the box and Jenna and I started ringing the owls and recording the data including length of P7 to determine the age of the owlets, weight, and gender. Dominic handed down two more owlets and then declared that he also had two adult owls in the box as well.

The box is huge and has several perches and compartments within it giving space for the adults to have some space away from the owlets. This is the first time I have ringed both parents with their off-spring in a box in 15 years.

Adult barn owls - the blood on the chest of the male owl was probably from his last meal

While Dominic was putting the owls back in the box, I collected 10 pellets in individual tin foil packages for Saffron a PhD student at Bangor University looking at microplastics in barn owl pellets.

This owlet was hiding round the corner in the box - this was the oldest owlet in the clutch at 48 days old.

Barn owl chick

The mitigation box that was put up earlier in the year had an adult male barn owl roosting in it which was a fabulous result for the team. Another of the boxes housed 4 delightful owlets seen below. The habitat here clearly able to support multiple broods of healthy owls and their offspring.

Clutch of barn owls

We said goodbye to Katie and Gabby and Dominic has been roped in to putting up some more boxes in the autumn.