Last year we had a tawny owl nesting in the big birdhouse behind our house, and we were lucky enough to see its baby (or babies?). This year we have a new tenant, and it looks like another tawny.
One morning we saw a red squirrel climbing the oak tree and the owl watching it warily. The squirrel ended up climbing right up onto the birdhouse roof!
The squirrrel was obviously not familiar with the Tale of Squirrel Nutkin – who gets his tail bitten off by an owl.
I haven’t seen the baby owl for over a week now, so I guess it has left home. The day after I took the previous photos, I saw it peeking out during daylight hours, so I got a couple more shots.
Today I happened to see mamma/pappa owl fly away from the nest box and shortly afterwards we saw it being chased around by two crows. I grabbed the camera but the whole party went over the forest and I saw the owl do a crazy spinning dive below the treetops. I waited a while for it to come home, but fairly quickly got bored of hanging out the bathroom window.
