Kestrels and Barn Owls

 

With a glorious morning forecast on Saturday, I headed down to the Valley at dawn to catch up on local stuff, however the morning was dominated by watching the antics of a Barn Owl and a female Kestrel.

During the course of 2+ hours, there was quite a bit of interaction between the 2 species, and I was able to observe ‘mugging’ for the first time, previously only reading about it.

I had thought that having heard/read about it, it was just reactionary and opportunistic on the Kestrels part, basically the Barn Owl carrying prey just happened to cross the Kestrels path.

Not so it seems, I watched whichever section of the field the Barnie hunted in, the female Kestrel followed, found a suitable tree, and watched it hunting. Bearing in mind that the female Kestrel hunts the same prey and is an accomplished hunter herself, it had obviously decided that this form of ‘hunting’ was far easier, premeditated behaviour it seems.

In total it ‘mugged’ the Barn Owl 3 times with 2 other ‘chases’ aborted, from the 3 ‘muggings’, it was successful in taking the prey 2 times. On every occasion, the ploy was the same, the Kestrel approached the Barn Owl from behind, grabbed the prey and held on using her weight.

                                          A bit distant but shows how the Kestrel approaches

                                                                        The snatch

                                                                     Failed this time

Quite a privilege to witness it, something I have never seen before, probably got the best views I have had of one also when it landed next to me briefly.