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Monday 20 October 2014

Bird Feeding and Barn Owl broods 18th October 2014

Hi, TODAY was the day I decided that I was going to give something back to the group. Thankfully I wasn't waking up at stupid times but getting up at 7:20 was somewhat a struggle! I met at Matt's house at 8AM. My first job was to bag up some feed...

Half a ton of bird feed was outside his house in a massive bag and needed moving and using. I filled up 6 bags in total while Matt was sorting out the car and trailer and... Off we went towards the Marlborough downs, while talking to Matt he told me that the NIA was willing to give 20 tonnes of arable crops away yes 20 tonnes. It really shows how nice the community is round there.

Wes topped off at 4 different sites dropping off more and more bird feed until we had let out at least 120KG! Matt had some work to do at a farm so I decided to have a birdwatch outside to keep me occupied. 30+ Redwing, 10+ Red Kite, 2 White Wagtail, 1 Mistle thrush and an incredible 50+ Jays!!!

Once Matt had completed a heck of a discussion we went over to one of the farms in search of some Barn Owls. As predicted for Matt a Barn Owl was sat on the ground inside this Barn. Just before this we found a Jay and male Sparrowhawk in the same tree and then to see it hunt a flock of Linnets, magical! 
This beauty managed to find its way onto the floor! the other who was in slighty better condition looked good as well. Matt told me that 2nd broods in barn owls is very rare and this is only his second occurence. 
Both chicks together was a ball of fluff! On the way towards our next nest we visited a huge farm that had an incredible 1100 tonnes of Rape seed oil!!! I've never seen so much, to make it even more amazing Matt had been given permission to take as much as he wants for Linnets
Another second brood of two Barn Owls followed. Matt showed me two key sites of the winter a lone hedge in the marlborough Downs and The Marlborough STW. Great Day!

3 comments:

  1. Love the Barn Owl pics Alex , wow thats a lot of rape seed oil :-)

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  2. Those Barn Owls are awesome!

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  3. Yes they were amazing two broods as well! The first pair produced 7 chicks this year. The other 6! That's a total of 13 chicks raised between them, it has been a cracking year for Bran Owls and everything else really

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