Following the recent arrival in one of our boxes of a Barn Owl from Manchester (details here), yesterday saw another visitor from up-country. Whilst visiting a regular nest site at Tregarne (St Keverne), a male bird flew out of the barn as we approached, but we managed to catch the female in the box, where she was sat with four downy chicks. Noticing she was ringed, we presumed it was the female we ringed there in 2017, but it was actually a female that had been ringed as a chick in 2017 at a site near Gweek (8km away). Oddly, this bird had bred elsewhere in 2018 and 2019 (near Crosslanes), 9km from where she was now nesting, so must have been a new arrival here.
As if this wasn't interesting enough, we then removed the bulk of an old Jackdaw nest in the box in the adjacent barn, finding the body of a long dead Barn Owl built into the nest. This bird was also ringed and remarkably was a chick from Devon ringed in 2019. When this bird arrived at Tregarne we won't know, but it must have been late winter or spring to be built into the Jackdaw nest, but there must have been some fight with two new females arriving at the same site to take it over!
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