It turns out we have a mystery guest staying in one of our buildings here on the Forsinard reserve. Nobody saw our visitor moving in, and to be honest they have left the place a bit of a state with poo and leftover meals discarded all over the place.
In an attempt to catch the culprit in the act, one of our volunteers (Will) and myself have set up a series of camera traps. You can see some of our results below.
After quite a lot of this....
We were eventually able to identify the visitor with these...
So our visitor turned out to be a beautiful Barn Owl! We had our suspicions, but we also have many Tawny Owls in the area and we really thought it might have been one of those. However, in this case, the camera doesn’t lie. The heart-shaped face, buff back and wings and pure white underparts make the barn owl quite distinctive. I think that we will be able to forgive the lack of manners and social etiquette from our guest, and I hope to be able to show you the contents of one of the owl pellets later on in the week.
If you would like to find out more about Barn Owls then click this link
If you are interested in helping Barn Owls in your local area then why not have a look at some ideas for how to build Barn Owl boxes at Nest Boxes
If you love nature, enjoy it with us! | Find more information on events and facilities at RSPB Forsinard Flows by visiting www.rspb.org.uk/Forsinard