Barn Owl feeds its mate a vole

Yay! Mrs Kestrel has laid her 5th egg

After an epic battle with a barn owl for possession of a nest box, the kestrel pair I have been watching moved off to a nearby nest box I fashioned out of an old elm stump and laid there instead.

The female has now laid a full clutch - five eggs - and is now sitting nicely. What a season it's been. Having 12 nestcams trained on nesting sites in the garden has made such a difference to how I watch wildlife. 

I can now see what happens when the birds and animals disappear from my sight. I've learned so much about their lives.

My findings have inspired a new collection of paintings which I will be showing at an exhibition celebrating the wonder of wildlife at my gallery in North Yorkshire next month.

Here is a sneak preview of some of the pieces I still have to finish off: 

Foster Owls

Tawny owls make excellent parents. So caring in fact, I've found they will even take on foster-chicks. Last year I put this nurturing instinct to the test by giving a pair six extra owlets to raise.

They barely batted an eye - despite the fact that they now had 10 chicks! I helped them along by putting extra food on my garden bird table every night.

The adult pair took on the role of feeding all these extra mouths and raised them until late August. I took advantage of their presence and got some great photographs of these owlets as they grew up right outside my living room window. These pictures went on to inform my paintings.

This year I repeated the process after an owlet was handed to me. The video below shows me adding this chick to the nest whilst the tawny adult was away. I'm wearing a helmet because tawny owls can be very dangerous and are very protective if they discover you near their nest.

I’m often asked to find a foster family for tawny owl chicks, because these owlets are so adventurous they leave the nest too early and then get into trouble.

People find them on the ground where they are vulnerable to predators and then hand them into their local vets or wildlife rehabilitation centres.

It is far better to try to restore them to their own nest. If that is not possible, then the next best thing is to pop them into the nest of a wild pair so that the chicks are raised in a more natural environment.

I've tried this with barn owls too - and been successful - but it isn't so often I'm handed barn owl chicks to raise.

Blue tit raids wren nest

Caught on camera!!! We see you!! This cheeky blue tit was caught red handed stealing moss from a wren's nest then taking it back to line its own nest box!



Watch to the end to see the wren come back and look about the nest, all confused. You can almost see it thinking: "Where's that moss gone?"

Earlier in the season I watched this wren spend ages carefully positioning this moss at the front of the roosting pouch as it built its nest. Poor thing!

Wrens often nest in my front porch and I paint them often, as above. It's been great to watch their comings and goings via the nest cam this spring.

All the nest cams in my garden are proving a real draw in the gallery and people are so keen to follow the stories of each bird.

 The kestrel has just laid an egg and the blackbirds are almost ready to fledge, but the cutest at the moment are the tawny owl chicks. Watch their mother feed them by clicking the utube link below.



I've uploaded the best of the footage I've been getting onto my website. Click here to watch it:

Watch this wild weasel as it builds a nest in the garden

The CCTV cameras in my garden are working a treat! Yesterday I captured this wild weasel as she made a nest!



I first spotted her in the garden a few months ago and have been staking out her favourite haunt for a while.

I rigged up a camera into a hollow log and have been putting food inside in the hope of attracting her. I also put an old mouse nest in, just in case I was lucky enough to persuade her to nest in there!

She went into the log for the first time yesterday and as she did so I noticed a bulge in her pencil-thin body.

Sure enough the footage last night shows her quickly turning the nest into a dome and snuggling in to sleep for the night.

I can't believe my luck. She's taken straight to it. And she's already pregnant!!!

I might put some rabbit fur out tonight so she can line the nest. I can't wait now to see the kits! Fingers crossed!!!

Nest Cams Reveal Brutal Bird Battle

My nest cams are so popular I've decided to extend my Easter Nest exhibition so that visitors to my gallery in North Yorkshire can watch as the eggs hatch and a new generation emerges in the garden this spring.

I have 12 secret cameras hidden in nest boxes in and around my garden and the grounds of my art gallery in North Yorkshire.

The images are then linked live to the exhibition space inside the gallery. So far the boxes are occupied by tawny owls, barn owls, kestrels, blue tits, wrens, blackbirds, robins, tree sparrows and even a pheasant hen.

This week two tawny owlets and a new brood of blackbirds hatched. Meanwhile the barn owls, robins and pheasant hen are all sitting on eggs.

It was incredible to see the moment the cameras first caught the adult tawny owl shuffling on top of a chipping egg and then later captured the first tiny owlet.The next day there were two!

The cameras have also recorded some really dramatic moments: including a brutal fight between a kestrel and a barn owl over one nest box.

The two birds of prey repeatedly lunged at each other in the battle, which was eventually won by the barn owl. The kestrel has meanwhile moved to another nest box behind the gallery.

I am sharing the best action on my website every day so that visitors can keep up to date with each bird's story.

This one shows the male blackbird bringing in a worm for his new brood which he unceremoniously dropped on Mrs Blackbird's head!

Easter Eggs and Nests

As spring approaches it’s tempting to tackle the cobwebs that have knotted up the corners of the greenhouse, but I like to leave them for the long-tailed tits.

These beautiful little birds weave a soft, delicate nest out of lichen, moss or sheep’s wool and then almost stitch it together with sticky cobwebs so that the nests can expand as their chicks grow.

Long-tailed tits are one of Britain’s earliest nest builders - I have seen them begin in the first week of February whilst there is still snow on the ground -but this early start can lead to problems because there is no leaf cover to hide behind at this time and it’s not unusual to find their elaborate nests ripped apart by corvids – especially magpies.

After watching a pair of adult birds build a nest using cobwebs collected from my greenhouse I painted the picture below. 

The ways in which different species build their nests is so fascinating I have made it the subject of a new exhibition which opens tomorrow here at my gallery in Thixendale, North Yorkshire.

I have secreted 12 nest cams into nesting sites hidden all over my garden so that visitors can watch live as birds build their nests. 

Already a tawny owl has laid two eggs for Easter and is now busy incubating them. It was incredible to watch as the female dug a nest scrape shortly before hand and the camera captured the male and female preening one another's faces affectionately.

The cameras also show the action in a barn owl nest box and a tree sparrow, which is busily creating a hollow cup shape out of lichen and moss using just its beak. The tree sparrow will go on to build it up into a tall domed structure, which could become a problem if the dome obscures the camera.

There are no shortage of tree sparrows here at Thixendale. When I moved here 17 years ago there was just one nesting in the roof of the house, now there are over 30 pairs. They have even taken over house martin boxes and once nested in a pair of old walking boots I put out for robins. 

One camera shows a pernickity blue tit which cannot decide which nest box to choose and I've been watching it dive in and out of several, spreading out its wings as if trying it for size.

And this week a new pair of robins have begun nesting in a storm lamp I hung over the back porch, so I hope to link a new camera to this site so that visitors can watch the robin as it constructs a cup shape out of the dried leaves it has been collecting. 

I like to put out attractive objects for the birds to nest in as they make wonderful props and backdrops for my paintings. Last year I also persuaded some swallows to nest in this storm lamp. 

This is now the second pair of robins I have in the garden, which is very unusual for such a territorial bird. The other pair seem to have made the front garden their territory where they continue to persist in trying to build a nest in the back of my Landcruiser. 

I'm taking the fact there are now two pairs here as a personal compliment for all the hard work I have put in to planting up what was once a bare hillside. Over the years I've planted a small woodland, a wildflower meadow and a great number of shrubs and bushes to attract the birds. Clearly the food supply is now plentiful enough to support more than one pair of robins. 

If you are in North Yorkshire this month don't miss the chance to visit the exhibition. There will be paintings and photographs of different species on the nest and plenty of real nests for families to see and learn how to identify. 

The exhibition runs until April 26th and is open daily. http://www.robertefuller.com/acatalog/EVENTS.html