Since 2018, a pair of tawny owls, called Strix and Aluco (Strix aluco is the Latin name of the tawny owl) has nested in a purpose built nest box in the garden at Yew View. I have installed a series of cameras, that have improved over the years, to document their story. I currently have three Hikvision cameras at this nest box; 2 inside and one outside.

Almost every year, they have raised a family here.

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This year, Strix has appeared , but with a new female. Aluco must have been at least 8 years old and we did wonder if she would breed again. This new female took a while before she came in the box. We have called her '2Aluco'. Her behaviour has been different to the original Aluco, who I had watched for 6 years. Then we had some technical problems with the cams and lost 3 weeks of filming, On the 3rd March, I got the cams working again and was delighted to see both owls in the box! We have never had this before. There was a lot of face preening, which is a bonding behaviour. We really hope they are going to breed here again.

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