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Writer's pictureWildlifeKate

More Tawny Joy at Yew View!

It’s been a great week for tawny footage at Yew View. With the owlets nearly 3 weeks old, they are very demanding and very addictive viewing! It took me a while to go through all the footage this week and I have uploaded this week’s highlights.

At 15 days , the owlets are much more mobile and the male and female are bringing lots of prey in to satisfy their appetites! As the female is tearing up prey, she can get quite dirty and, as she did last year, she seems to come back to the nest wet sometimes as she has gone for a bath to keep her fathers in good condition. She does look quite comical when she returns!



I log all the prey items brought in each week and, this week, we had lots of worms! A quick and easy protein meal, large worms can be a good snack for a hungry owlet. One night, they brought in 9 worms!


The highlight for me this week was when I looked through the kingfisher post footage. Our kingfishers have not been frequenting the wildlife pond as much as they have the last few years and only seem to appear a couple of times a week. I was glad I looked through though, as I spotted this footage. At 6.45 am, the female (I think) alighted on this post and sat here for nearly 8 minutes!  She was mobbed a few times, but gave me probably the best views we have had of her for some time. Looking at the other footage, the female left the perch on the box just a few minutes before this was recorded, so I am presuming it is the female. I find it hard to distinguish male from female, apart from their behaviour when in the box. The female will often come and will feed the owlets large prey by tearing it up. The male just throws it in and leaves them to it!

I had to watch this footage a couple of times as I was so captivated by it… isn’t she just beautiful?!!!


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The male used the Owl Mansion a couple of times and he certainly loves his decking for a spot of early morning sunshine. Here, he is watching the bank below, looking for prey…


The owlets are now big enough to tackle a vole or mouse on their own and will eat them whole. Some of the rats are too big though and they are not strong enough yet to rip it apart. The male brought this rat in and they had to wait for the female to come back in before they could eat it…


Worms have been big on the menu this week… although they don’t last long!


I managed to capture the female early one morning when she returned to the box after her morning bath….



The owlets are very fidgety and the female gets little rest in the day with them. Last year, they were 16 days old when she left them on their own in the box. Amazingly, they were 16 days old when she first left them this week. She returned early afternoon after she’d had a good, undisturbed snooze! I’m sure she is roosting nearby so would hear their distress calls if they were threatened by our rather brazen squirrel!


I was astonished when, this week. the female came in with a whole rabbit!! It is a young one, but she only just made it up to the box and fell in rather ungracefully. This huge prey lasted the owlets for nearly 24 hrs!


A sit right in front of the camera gave me a great chance to lift some close-up footage of this beautiful girl!



She often sits just outside the box early morning. I am SO glad I put this camera up here… I can’t wait to see the owlets looking out in a week or so time….




Finally, the 3 ‘amigos’ came to the front of the box whilst the female was outside. You can clearly see their new feathers coming through now and they are all thriving, even the smaller of the three, who hatched a day and a half after the first 2. I reckon another week or so and these guys will be looking out of the box and thinking of coming outside… then the fun really begins!


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