My female tawny is doing a grand job. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, the male disappeared some weeks ago and she is attempting to raise the 2 remaining owlets on her own. As they get bigger, this becomes more of a challenge. My rat feeding station under her box has provided her with a couple of daytime meals and she sometimes spends time outside the box, watching the rats below and planning her attack!
This clips show how much the owlets have grown and you can see their eyes have now opened. This huge rat gave the family a good feed…..
I had set up various brackets on the tree for my Bushnell and, with much more time being spent outside the box, especially in daylight, I mounted my NatureView ‘Live View’ trail camera up on a branch outside the box. The camera is about 3 metres from the box entrance. The live view element enabled me to set up the camera so it was positioned correctly… this can be the hardest part of setting a trail cam… especially if you are precariously balanced up a tree and you do not want to be there for long!
I have a wired camera on the outside of this box, so I can see if I am likely to get some good captures and I was excited to see that she spent quite a lot of time outside of the box on the day following my placement of the Bushnell.
I was excited (as always!) to see what the trailcam had captured. This tawny, despite being at the end of my garden, is extremely wary and despite my attempts to creep up to see her outside the box, she disappears at the slightest hint of movement. This is where a Bushnell comes into its own as it remotely films without disturbance.
I lifted some screenshots from the video clips. It is great to see this tawny up close… they are such beautiful birds!
Below are a section of my favourite clips so far. All of the captured clips can be seen on my YouTube Playlist. There are a couple of night time clips, but it is the daytime ones that are my favourite. I just have to keep my fingers crossed that these chick manage to make it to branching as this position should yield some great owlet footage. I just hope this lone female is able to bring in enough prey for these growing owlets!
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