Abernyte.org and Abernyte Community Company

Unfortunately I picked up a dead Barn Owl from the gateway into the lower glebe field this afternoon, 18th Jan. It was just by the road side, I will post more information when I have had a detailed examination of the bird.

Barry

The Barn Owl that I found yesterday was a first winter male. This just means that it hatched last summer, but where? The body weight of the bird was 228gm, a typical body weight for a male Barn Owl is 330gms, and the male has little variation through the year, unlike the female that puts on weight before egg laying. So this bird had lost about 1/3 of its body weight, now that is a big weight loss! Young birds always have a hard time of it; they are still learning how to hunt, and learning where the best places to find food are. So when the hard weather comes along, particularly the depth of snow that we had, it makes life hard for a bird that feeds on small mammals, which are now much safer under the snow, and so losses are often high.

Barry

That is tough luck. It is a quite high profile loss and I bet that there will have been many others in species much less noticeable.

On the positive side we now have an unoccupied Barn Owl territory!

Irene saw a barn owl between Milton and the Antique Centre to-night ( Mon 15th Feb ) just after eight

John

Good news.

Barry

Elizabeth has reported a Barn Owl sighting on Monday evening 1st March at about 6:30pm near the Kinnaird cross roads.

Barry