I can't believe a week has passed and our owlet is now just over a week old. Sadly, the other egg did not hatch, so we just have a single owlet. This means that all the food will be focused on this single youngster and it will grow very fast on a feast of local rodents.
Strix has been bringing in a steady stream of mainly wood mice, with a few voles. Aluco has been a great mum, carefully ripping off tiny morsels of meat. As the week has progressed, larger and larger pieces have been given, with the owlet eating a whole mouse head on the 3rd April! Aluco leaves the box as soon as it starts to get dark, so that is a good time to log on if you want a good view of this youngster. She is usually only gone for about 10-15 minutes... long enough to stretch her wings, have a comfort break and sometimes a bath. One night she returned soaking wet!
I also appealed for a name for our Yew View owlet. I had an amazing array of suggestions. I narrowed it down to 4 and then asked DJ, who owns Yew View..... we decided on 'Nyx'; the Greek goddess of Darkness. We will not know what sex this owlet is, so I am just going to call 'it' a 'her' for now!
It is difficult to decide what clips to lift and save. As you can imagine, it is very time consuming to watch, lift, process and then upload the clips. Some are shared here on my blog and all the others you will be able to see on the Tawny page of my website as they are embedded into a YouTube Playlist. Below are a selection from this week. The change in Nyx is amazing. The speed at which they grow is phenomenal, especially when there is no competition for food!
Much of my footage is concentrated inside the box. Here i one of Strix, bringing in one of the many mice he has caught. They are the stored in the box so Aluco always has something to feed Nyx.
The jackdaws came to check out the box last week. They have nested in here before. They did not risk getting too close.....
Nyx is now starting to get too big to be completely underneath Aluco and often appears ... this lovely clip shows her snoozing......
When Aluco leaves the box, it is a chance to have a close look at Nyx. You can just see the wing feathers starting to develop over the next week and her eyes will open in the next few days too!
Many times, Aluco feeds Nyx at the back of the box, facing away from the camera. I am always hoping for the feed to be facing the camera..... like this! Look how big the pieces are now... at one point, Nyx eats the whole mouse head!
I lifted some still this week as well. Lovely scenes of Aluco with Nyx.
We will see great changes in Nyx this week as her eyes open and she starts to see the world for the first time. The pressure will then be on to get as much food in as possible to satisfy her growing appetite!