Sunday 17 March 2024

2024 nesting season underway

We've had a report of a Barn Owl pair in one of our camera boxes on 2 eggs. The first egg was likely laid on 15th March. There has been only one year during our 10-year project when egg laying started earlier than this.

With the record warm temperatures experienced in February 2024 it is quite possible that we'll discover a nest with even earlier egg laying this year.

This post will be updated with any earlier records we find.


Friday 23 February 2024

WInter 2023/24 Barn Owl Season

During the 2023/24 winter season (Nov-Feb) 13 barn owls were encountered roosting at our RAS nest boxes.
 
Six of which were new ringed: All had fledged in 2023, and had likely dispersed into our area

Seven were subsequent encounters:

Including 2 controls from Devon (234km) and Gloucester (68km) ringed as chicks in 2021 and 2023 respectively.
Plus retraps of birds fledged from RAS boxes in 2019 and 2021

As well as PIT tagging the 6 new birds, tags were added to 3 of the 7 re-encounters (the other 4 already being tagged). Hopefully we'll get readings of all these birds during the upcoming RAS season.

 

One of the new ringed females was another well marked bird exhibiting orangy breast feathers as shown here:

 


 

 

Wednesday 7 February 2024

Barn Owl arrives from Cotswolds

When checking a box in the Thames Valley this week, we encountered a female Barn Owl that had been ringed as a chick last year 68km away in the North Cotswolds.