Barn owls make a variety of
shrieks, hisses and snoring sounds,
The Latin name for the barn owl is
but they don't hoot (that's the
Tyto alba alba
Tawny Owl)
Barn owls generally swallow their
Barn owls are amazingly efficient
prey whole but are unable to digest
hunters – soft feathers, dark
the hair and bone. After each night's
adapted eyes and sensitive hearing
hunting the owl regurgitates one or
two black pellets
Their soft feathers are not very On average a wild Barn Owl eats
waterproof so rainfall is a problem. A about 4 mice and voles per night,
wet barn owl is unable to fly silently that's 1,460 per year.
and will not catch prey as easily
Ideal barn owl habitat is rough,
The main cause of Barn Owl decline tussocky grassland with a deep
is lack of food (mainly field voles, litter layer as this is where field
wood mice, and common shrews). voles (the Barn Owl's main prey)
are most numerous.
Before deciding to encourage Barn Buffer strips' are simply strips of
Owls make sure the land is at least grassland along field margins and
1km from the nearest motorway, can be very beneficial to Barn Owls
dual carriageway, or similar road. by providing valuable hunting areas
Awkward or unproductive corners of Farmers who choose the Entry
fields can be transformed into Level Stewardship Scheme can
patches of rough, tussocky grass receive £30 per ha per year
Britains' 4,000 pairs of Barn Owls 3,000 barn owls a year are killed on
produce roughly 12,000 young roads
Between August and the end of
Research suggests that when
November, young Barn Owls move
young owls encounter a major road
well beyond their parents' home
they are killed very quickly.
range
Under normal circumstances, nest The best way to make roads safe is
boxes should not be put up within to plant high hedges or lines of
1km of a main road closely-spaced trees next to the
road surface on both sides - forcing
birds to fly higher whilst crossing
It may be worth putting up a nestbox Barn Owl decline was because of
somewhere - you never know when hedges being removed and bigger
they might turn up! fields with no rough grass margins

In 1932 there was 12,000 pairs in In the late 1999 there were only
the UK 4,000 pairs in the UK
A dead barn owl was found by a
The Barn Owl Trust is the only
cyclist on the A53 near to Telford –
national organisation that's entirely
the RSPCA said it was a young bird
dedicated to conserving Barn Owls
Birdwatchers had reported watching
A local farmer remembered
a pair of owls nesting in an old barn
watching owls on his farm when he
near Telford
was a child
There has been more barn owls in
Mice and voles live in rough grass
Shropshire because farmers are
and are the prey of owls and hawks
paid to not plough all their fields and
leave rough grass