Tonight the weather broke for a short while and so i took a trip out, picking my way through the floods and standing water to see how the Barn Owl Chicks were doing. I’m concerned that with such wet weather they may not be getting enough food, but hopefully the adults are flying during the dry spells to hunt.
There were no signs of the adult flying or hunting, and indeed very little moving at all, the Peregrines were nowhere to be seen and even the Gulls and Cormorants were huddled on the cliffs. The Barn Owls were sheltering outside the nest, again I could only see two, as has been the case for the last few visits (see my older diary entries), Im hoping the third chick fledged as it was considerably bigger than the two remaining ones. Worryingly the chicks were not calling for the adult tonight and this is the second trip where I’ve not seen it perched in any of its normal places, hopefully it was just sitting out the rain somewhere.
I’ll wait and see how the weather goes and maybe get a trip back, theres another Barn Owl nest that I know of locally but Ive not been able to visit due to road works, I will try and get back up there as well and see how that one is doing. I will just hope that the rain stops soon and the sun gets out allowing the adults to resume hunting !
