Country diary: Barn owlets that feel like miracles | Nicola Chester

Inkpen, Berkshire: It's been an awful year for their breeding numbers, yet here we are, at our back garden gate, watching two young adults that feel like our ownMost evenings at dusk, we take a last cup of tea out to watch the barn owls from the back garden gate. A pair has used the box in our neighbour's field ever since we put it up five years ago, and for the first time, they have raised two chicks. This is heartening enough, but it feels almost miraculous considering 2025 has been so bad for barn owls. It's thought poor grass growth in a hot, dry year has suppressed numbers of their main prey, voles and mice, which were already low from natural fluctuations.And so, over spring and summer, we have watched as each fluffy owlet emerged from the box and tiptoed along the oak branches like ghouls. We've watched their parents sweep in to feed them - sometimes at worryingly long intervals - the siblings waiting on the nestbox platform, turning their heads upside down, snapping at flies. We have seen them fledge, bouncing from tree to tree above the old paddock, then out to measure and survey Home Field. Continue reading...