Amazing Nature

Last week I was house sitting at our friends’ renovated farm house near the barn owl box. I was on site to watch the barn owl fledglings Ace and Duey stretch their wings and begin to explore the barn. But there were more than just the barn owls to observe, and I got a big surprise when this sparrowhawk landed with its supper on a branch right outside the living room window. I ran for my camera and managed to get some shots through the glass.

My son got this photo of Ace and Duey perched on one of the girders. We took photos from a makeshift hide at the opposite end of the barn.

I think both youngsters are females, which typically have darker markings around their facial disks and also more brown speckles on their fronts. Here are some of my other photos of them preening and dozing outside the box.

Now that they don’t have to be confined within the box it must be nice for them to be outside in the air.

Also making good use of the farm outbuildings were the swallows. This nest had a full clutch of chicks, almost ready to fledge. Because it’s now July this is perhaps a second brood.

Outside on the barn roof some swallow fledglings were calling out to be fed.

I spotted what I think is a juvenile thrush perched on the roof too.

All around the barns I’ve also seen and heard goldfinches and wrens. The smaller birds had better watch out for that sparrowhawk!