Back in February, I wrote about an exciting discovery I made on our family property. Two barn owls decided to make one of our deer stands their nesting home for the spring. I quickly recognized this as a once in a lifetime opportunity to document the nesting and hatching process of a very secretive and fascinating species.
Click play below to see the sequence of events unfold.
Video Synopsis:
The Barn owls decided to take their chances by laying an early nest of 7 eggs in February. They prepared bedding for the eggs with undigested hair from mice and voles. Unfortunately, two massive snows towards the end of the month filled the deer stand with several inches, covering the nest for several days. By the end of the first week of March, the eggs disappeared. It is unclear whether a predator got to them or whether the owls removed them on their own. The pictures show the owls moving the eggs around quite a bit leading up to their complete disappearance. My theory is they knew the eggs were no longer viable and removed them from the nest.
But the story doesn’t end there. Within a very short period of time, the owls began laying a second batch of eggs, eventually reaching a total of 6. I confirmed this total on April 4th, the last time I checked the camera before May 17th. In the video, you can see a picture captured of the owl flying out right next to my legs as I walk into the deer stand. When I looked in the stand, I didn’t see it and thought the coast was clear. It turns out, it was hiding behind the upright board. For those of you that may have been concerned about me, do not worry. I recovered from my minor heart attack.
After April 4th, the owls started getting serious. The female began lying on the nest more regularly and the male spent most of his time hunting for the two of them. At one point, the board they had been using to hide the nest behind falls over in the deer stand due to some unknown force. Luckily, the eggs appeared to have been moved to another corner before this occurred. Of the six eggs, three hatched. I snuck up to check on the nest on April 28th, which was the first time I saw the new babies. In the video, you don’t see them until the next day. I snapped a photo from outside the deer stand, but did not enter to check the camera.
At this point, I knew I had to leave them alone for a couple weeks so I didn’t stress out the parents or the babies. When I returned on May 17th, the parents didn’t fly out like they had been doing normally. I slowly climbed the ladder and began to smell something dead. I was deeply saddened to reach the top and discover that not only had the babies all been killed and eaten, but the mother had as well. Only her talons and feathers remained.
So what was the vicious culprit that could take down an owl and its sharp talons? I expected something shocking, but was somewhat surprised to see that it was simply a raccoon that caused all the mayhem. It just goes to show how fearless and aggressive raccoons can be. If an owl is an easy meal, a hen turkey and her nest probably aren’t much more of a challenge for a large raccoon…
I had a feeling something like this might happen, but was getting increasingly hopeful they would make it through since there hadn’t been issues from the beginning. Such is the circle of life in the animal kingdom, but that doesn’t make it any easier to accept. I hope I am lucky enough in the future to have another chance at capturing this amazing process.
Until then, raccoons beware…