Barn owls with prey

The hunting skills of the adult male Barn Owl that I have been working on are second to none and Brown Rats seem to be high on the owls hit list which perhaps normally would favour voles and mice but the young owls are being very well provided for,  This in turn should help create an increased population of owls in our area for the next few breeding season,

Barn Owl Fledgling

This morning I watched a young Barn Owl fledgling leave the safety of its barn, It was on a learning curve trying to develop its hunting skills over the rough grass field, It slowed to a clumsy hover then dived into the grass after prey that it had heard or seen but its hearing and sight were better than its flight skills and it missed the prey but proceeded in hops and flapping jumps in the long grass trying to trap its escaping prey, No joy there either so perhaps there is a bit more skill required to this self catering than it thought,  At this time one of the adult birds returned to the roof of the barn so the young fledgling decided to go looking for easier Hand-outs instead,

Barn Owls hunting

I revisited the Barn Owls last evening working on the principle that the previous evening had probably been two wet for them to have had much hunting success,  This seemed to be the case as the owls were busy way before the sun set creating good opportunities to capture active hunting shots,  To complete the portfolio below I have compiled a sequence of Six consecutive images into a Barn Owl hunting montage to try to demonstrate the Owls low flying silent hunting skills,  The two that I watched were successful in taking prey on four occasions during the hour that I was there,