Wildlife Column: Barn owls making a welcome return

I have previously written about local barn owls, a species which thirty or forty years ago had plummeted to the point of near-extinction across our wider region.
KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERAKONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA
KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

There were various issues but particularly a combination of persistence pesticides, the loss of nest sites in old buildings (such as barns) and old, hollow trees, and of course, a general intensification of farming practice and consequent loss of habitat. The owls just about hung on in lowland areas and especially in and around wetlands such as fens and reedbeds; again two habitats under the cosh in the later twentieth century. Today however, this beautiful (and useful) bird has made a remarkable comeback – with help from the Barn Owl Trust, the RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts, and numerous sympathetic farmers and landowners. I say ‘useful’ because the barn owl provides a free ‘vermin control service’ on farms or for anyone living close-by their nesting or roosting sites.

I have had quite a few recorded sightings round Norton and Holmesfield for example, and Paul Ardron tells me they are back around the Longstone Moor area of the Peak District. Do let me know if you have seen this iconic owl around your patch. Listen out too for their distinctive calls described as ‘eerie screeching and hissing noises’. If you do see a barn owl in flight it is very hard to tell a male from a female. Close up, the slightly heavier females (around 360g) usually have darker brown feathers around the rim of the facial disc plus darker bars on the tail. They also have small black spots on the chest and on the underside of the wings. The males (usually weighing about 330g) are generally lighter in colour and more pure white underneath. Owls in the hand are incredibly light-weight and with their plumped-out feathers and hollow bones are far less substantial than they appear at first sight. In the build-up to egg-laying the females can be up to 425g. Birds will be on territory now, and from May to June, listen for the ‘snoring’ calls of the young owlets begging for food.

Professor Ian D. Rotherham, of Sheffield Hallam University, researcher, writer and broadcaster on wildlife and environmental issues

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