The Tawny Owls.......

         In 2021 a pair of Tawny owls nested for the first time in the box I made and had installed in the wood. Two young owls fledged successfully that year, a very pleasing success. I had tried many ways of keeping  grey squirrels from taking over the box and using it for themselves but that year the Tawny owls won. When the box started to fall apart I replaced it with a commercially made one later that year, and once again took up the battle with the squirrels. 

        In the Autumn of 2023 I put in place a new cunning plan - to wrap tarpaulin around the tree both above and below the nest box so that the squirrels could not get a grip, and it worked. In April a routine inspection of the box revealed two white eggs nesting on the sawdust inside (Tawny Owls do not make a nest). The adults are easily disturbed at this stage so the area around the nest was put out of bounds. Incubation is a demanding and risky time for any birds as that is when predators will always take a chance to get either a sitting adult or a young bird. It's a worrying time ! We had decided that if the eggs did indeed hatch then it would be good to get the chicks ringed and to invite in a licensed bird ringer to check them out. Ringing does not harm the birds at all and enables them to be traced and identified again at a future point, and having the chicks out of the nest means that they can be weighed and measured, providing useful data for researchers.

        The two healthy looking owlets were ringed this week, taken out of the box and carefully replaced back inside afterwards. They will soon be gone. Tawny owlets "branch", they leave the nest before their flight feathers are fully developed and move around the branches of trees where the adults will continue to feed them until they are old enough. With luck they will get to raise another generation of owls, in time, in our wood.

Two healthy, well-fed owlets

the claws are already very sharp

The warm downy feathers will be gradually shed

the metal rings are numbered and recorded, they are a loose fit above the bird's ankle

Back in the box and none the worse for the experience