Your timestamps help us-

Every single timestamp matters! While a single chat message might just seem like a quick note, when we combine thousands of these timestamps together, they unlock incredible, real-time data about the hidden lives of these owls. Because of the community’s dedication to logging these events minute-by-minute, we don’t just watch a live stream—we can map out exact hunting patterns, track the specific diets of different species, and accurately follow the owlets’ journeys from the first crack of an egg to their very first steps outside the box.

Here is exactly what your timestamps have revealed about the 2026 season:

Barn Owls (Buster & Roxy)

The community heavily monitors the Barn Owl box, logging 1,883 specific timestamped messages.

• The Prey Machine: Viewers logged an incredible 1,181 prey deliveries to the nest.

• Peak Hunting Hours: Buster prefers the midnight shift. The highest concentration of food deliveries logged by chatters occurs consistently between 12:00 AM and 2:00 AM.

• The Owlets: Buster and Roxy successfully hatched 5 owlets. The community spotted the very first “pip” (the egg cracking) on May 2nd, 2026. By June 22nd, chatters were logging the owlets making their way up to the box’s ledge and eventually celebrated seeing all 5 owlets safely out on the decking together.

• The Cycle of Life: Chatters logged 120 mating/bonding events, 57 egg-related events, and 177 events documenting the owlets hatching and growing. The most active month overall for monitoring the Barn Owls was June, with 731 observation messages as the owlets matured.

• Prey Breakdown (19 Specific Identifications): When chatters were able to visually identify the exact prey Buster brought back, the diet heavily favoured small, common rodents:

  • Voles:  (52.6%)

  • Mice:  (31.6%)

  • Rats:  (5.3%)

  • Shrews:  (5.3%)

  • Birds:  (5.3%)

Tawny Owls (Izzy & Toby)

The Tawny Owls had 530 timestamped messages dedicated to their activity.

• Deliveries: The community recorded 180 prey deliveries to the Tawny nest. 1 rat is much bigger than a shrew, so you don’t need as many!

• Peak Hunting Hours: Izzy and Toby are early risers compared to Buster, hitting their peak delivery times between 8:00 PM and 10:00 PM.

• The Owlets: Izzy and Toby successfully raised 4 owlets, who the community affectionately named Cookie, Fudge, Smudge, and Rusty. Chatters noted the first pip around March 20th, 2026, pointing out that little Rusty hatched a bit later than the three older siblings. By late April, chatters were already logging the owlets bravely hopping outside the nest box entrance.

• Prey Breakdown (11 Specific Identifications): The Tawny Owls have a noticeably different diet compared to Buster and Roxy, taking down much larger prey, including amphibians and larger rodents:

  • Rats:  (36.4%)

  • Voles:  (27.3%)

  • Birds:  (27.3%)

  • Frogs:  (9.1%)

📢 A Quick Note on Our Wildlife Data & Timestamps

To show an example of how incredibly valuable your chat timestamps are, I ran our historical logs through Google Gemini (AI) to extract some initial stats on Buster, Roxy, Izzy, and Toby.

Please note: This is just a preliminary preview! Because we haven’t filtered out duplicate reports yet (for example, if two chatters logged the exact same prey delivery at the same minute), some numbers may be slightly counted twice.

However, even as an early sample, this data clearly demonstrates how powerful your community effort is! In the future, this exact dataset could be invaluable for wildlife researchers and ornithologists studying owl hunting behaviors, prey selection, and chick development.

So please, keep leaving those detailed timestamps in chat!

(If any researchers or nature enthusiasts would like access to the raw timestamp data to study themselves, I am happy to provide the dataset with all usernames anonymized for privacy.)

 

Observation on Prey Identification: Because these records are logged visually by chatters observing a live video feed, it is highly likely that some small mammals (like voles or shrews) may have been misidentified and simply logged as “mice.” However, even with minor human errors, these community timestamps still provide a fantastic, highly accurate overall indication of the different hunting habits and dietary preferences between the Barn and Tawny owls!