Barn owls…at last!

So far, this year seems to have been a shocking year for barn owls.  The long cold winter saw many adult birds die, particularly in late March (see http://btoringing.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/cold-spring-hits-barn-owls.html). This, coupled with a poor breeding season last year due to the bad weather in late summer meant that there were seemingly fewer birds around to breed. Across the country it seems that barn owls are having a pretty tough year (see http://btoringing.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/spring-weather-bad-news-for-barn-owls.html).

So, I was not overly optimistic about finding many chicks to ring when I went out with Jim this weekend. On Saturday, Jim, Emma and I returned to check a few boxes around the Southwell and Flintham areas that had had eggs or very young chicks on the first visit. The first two occupied boxes contained three chicks and an adult each (the first adult being six years old). This was followed by a box of four chicks and an adult and a box with a couple of stock dove chicks in.

When we arrived at the last occupied box, the owner mentioned that there were some campers in the field near the box who would like to watch if we found anything to ring. Well, it was certainly their lucky day. Jim went up the ladder (this one was a little too high for me) and confirmed that the box was occupied. As I stood at the bottom with the campers, Jim carefully took the first chick out of the box, then the second, third, fourth, fifth, six and seventh!!! And then came mum! It was stunning to see so many healthy looking chicks in a single brood. It will need a mild few weeks and a lot of luck for all seven to fledge though – fingers crossed!

Jim braving the tall ladder

 

These are quite possibly the most photographed barn owl chicks
in Nottingham

On Sunday, Jim and I checked a few boxes in the Vale of Belvoir. We didn’t have quite such a productive morning with only a single barn owl chick ringed. One other box had an adult on eggs and one had an adult on six very young chicks that were too small to ring. We also found a single stock dove chick. Bizarrely, when arriving at one box, which was in a dilapidated barn located next to some hard standing with a manure heap and a puddle of highly contaminated (by the manure) water, we flushed four snipe! Not what we were expecting to see.

What was really interesting for me this weekend was the opportunity to process six adult female barn owls. All the birds were ringed birds, so were of known age. It was fascinating to see birds with similarly aged chicks in different stages of moult and to be able to spend a little time looking closely at the different ages of their feathers. Unfortunately, the photos I took don’t show the subtle differences in colour very well but in this image you can just see the different shades of white on the feathers and see that this bird was still in active moult. This bird was ringed as a chick in 2007 so is six years old.

So, by the end of the weekend, we had ringed eighteen barn owl chicks, which doubled the number ringed by the South Notts Ringing Group (SNRG) this year. It appears that the warm summer has encouraged birds to try to raise late broods (whether these are second broods or late first broods would be interesting to know). I hope that the weather in the next few weeks is kind to these birds and that the majority of them manage to fledge.

For more information and for the possible reasons for the poor year, see Jim’s post on the SNRG blog (http://southnottsringinggroup.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/its-all-over-now-or-is-it.html).