Today a close encounter with a Barn Owl Tyto alba. Pretty much every year a single Barn Owl spends the
winter in a nest box that I’ve mounted on an outside wall of a house in Zwolle,
the Netherlands, a long time ago. At
some point the nest box got equipped with a cheap infrared camera, allowing me
to observe the nest box contents on a television. ‘Owl Channel’ has given me a
lot of insight in the not so interesting behavior of a roosting Barn Owl. I now
only use the camera as an easy way to check whether the box is occupied or not,
and by what. For this I have to silently connect the camera cable through an
open window. This usually goes well, but apparently today I was too noisy,
flushing the owl out of its shelter. Thankfully it didn’t fly away, but sat
down on the perch that’s mounted below the box entrance, and appeared to be
more interested in my actions than it was scared. After a few photos it climbed
back into its winter shelter and on television I could see that it quickly
returned to its usual habit of doing absolutely nothing during the day, except
for preening, sleeping and regurgitating about 1.3 pellet a day (which I usually collect).
The owl of February 13 2010.
According to this file's details I took this photo on December 27 2002, with my first digital camera.
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