Sibling Help

Will there ever be another breeding season like this one with young House Martins still in the nest in October and two broods of Barn Owls still in their nesting barn?

When you spend many hours observing and filming a species sometimes something happens that has never been recorded before let alone captured on film. This is exactly what happened with the Barn Owls. For six weeks only the male Barn Owl was feeding the seven young and at times he was only just coping with their ever increasing demands for food. One night when some of the young were on the wall outside the barn an older young flew in to them with a vole in its bill. It stood there for a minute as the young were looking the other way. Suddenly one young realised that the young was offering prey to it and then grabbed and swallowed the prey offered. I had little doubt that one of the young had learned how to catch prey and was responding to the hunger calls of its sibling and providing food. Has this ever been witnessed before? Click here