Barn Owls, and building a habitat for them, a little on how to get along with the wild ones,

I wrote the first draft of this blog over a year ago, I decided to update it and re-post it. Outdoor blogs are fun to write, the interaction of wild animals and humans are especially interesting. I live around them, the Racoons, Otters, and Skunks are just a few. Many of them perform services for us unintentionally while they are going about their everyday lives of searching for food. Bats consume thousands of bugs nightly, including a lot of mosquitoes. When living around Racoons we are trained quickly to conform to what their idea of living grand is, we learn what keeps them out of the trash cans. Avoiding Skunks we soon learn to accept them, there is a reason they do not run, the same reason Porcupines can't, they both have an excellent defense system. Coyotes, Puma's, and Fox have their place as well, we soon accept each other and learn to survive by staying out of each other's way. My Dad told me when I was young the best way to understand people is to watch the wild animals, he was correct. The animal I am writing about today is the noble Barn Owl, we have a substantial population on our island, this pair has been with us now for many years, they are all members of our community. Let us get started.

Photo of an Adult Barn Owl.

Five years ago my neighbor came across a fledgling Barn Owl, a very small female, very healthy it fell out of a nest and started walking somewhere. He had a huge wire cage and placed the little guy in it and nursed it to full size and released it. It flew to the eave under his house and stayed there, so he did what every blue-blooded American boy would do, he built a nesting box. The owl did occupy the box and went on to have two broods of young ones over the next two years. The nesting box was well worn and the barn owl habitat needed to be revisited. I volunteered to build an owl box, I had been thinking about building a few for some time along with wood duck boxes and bat habitats.

I follow these instructions when building Owl boxes. Link

Barn owls hunt at night, they are nocturnal, the owl occupying our nesting box flies past my sliding glass door every night at 8-8:30 pm during the winter and an hour later during summer. This one at least is a creature of habit, most animals develop a behavior pattern and stick with it. Owls roost during the day in secluded spots that are hidden, under the eaves of houses, in hollowed-out holes in trees, high in barn rafters and of course in their nest. They don't hoot like other owls they have a raspy, slightly eerie call, in fact not a screech or a scream. When the little ones get hungry they also get noisy hollering out the hole of the owl box. They are silent, strong, flyers hunting over open fields and meadows spreading their large graceful wings silently. The barn owl wingspan is an impressive 39 1/2"-49 1/4" (100-125 cm), with a body length of 12 1/2"-15 3/4" (32040 cm) and weighing in at 14-25 ounces, a large bird but lightweight.

They swallow their food whole, skin, bones all of it down the old hatch, but they do not pass all of it, a couple of times a day (normally 2, sometimes more) they will cough out a ball of tightly wound remains which land on the ground. Researchers inspect these "pellets" to learn more about the owl nesting habits. There are 46 different species of barn owls worldwide, the North American species is larger than twice the size of the smallest species, which reside in the Galapagos Islands. They have excellent vision which aids them in hunting from dusk until morning light and has the best hearing of any animal ever tested. With such great hearing, they are able to capture small rodents and field mice hidden by snow or ground cover. Because squirrels and chipmunks are daytime creatures owls normally do not hunt them. I observed the owl in our nesting box perching on a limb 10 feet from the entrance of the nest staring down a red squirrel. The squirrels live upstairs of the owls, they have 5-6 nest normally, they have been nesting there for years. It's a pecan tree, crows love that tree as well, I wrote a blog about the crows earlier this year about how they were flying around with pecans in their beaks. The Barn Owls so not eat the pecans, I use the leaves for worm bedding and make walking canes from the limbs. The owls live to a ripe old age of 15 1/2 years at the most, 13 years being about the average age.

The entire family is here.

Barn owl habitats extend in all 48 lower United States into Canada, deserts, marshes, wheat fields, forest, wooded areas as well as in cities. They are very versatile, however, they are in declining numbers in some habitats, they live in hollowed out tree trunks, tunnels, stadiums, and live as high as 13,000 feet in the Andes. They roost in their nest year round, they sometimes have numerous nest with young owls at varying ages. Using the same nest year after year, but often other mating owls take up residence. Barn Owls mate for life, as many wild animals do. I'm going to write a blog on that because it is so impressive and romantically sad at times. The male courts the female by hovering in front of the female for a few seconds referred to as a "moth flight", he will display the nest by calling inside and flying in and out of it. After they become a pair the male will bring prey to her, much more than she can consume, beginning a month prior to her laying the eggs. Maybe it's a showing of plentiful food to encourage more eggs, the eggs are not large grade A, they measure up to 1 3/4" long. The birds protect the area around the barn owl habitat, but they are not territorial in the open fields, more than one pair normally hunts the same locations.

 Barn Owls were affected when DDT used in agriculture and when rodent poisons were widely used they affected the bird's source of food. Cars kill and injure a number of them due to flying low over the fields while hunting; hedgerows have been found to help in saving some of them from that fate. Building an owl box is not really difficult, plans are available here, I made mine from marine plywood I had left over from a project (I forget what that one was). I try to use "reclaimed" material in whatever I build, the next boxes I build will be made from an old (30 years) redwood fence, it makes good barn owl habitat. Barn owl nest box placement must be as close to their natural habitat as possible, protected in a hidden spot is the most important thing to remember.

There are various configurations of Owl habitats, I like this one.

Great Horned Owls are the Barn Owls natural wild predator, raccoons and snakes are lesser predators but they are still an extreme danger to them. I found a young owl dead at the base of a power pole in my yard, we had a wind storm during the night. The young one appeared to get caught in the wind somehow and was blown about 75 yards away from the nest.

I was on a construction site building an electric generating plant when a worker found a dead Barn Owl, well the job was shut down and the death was investigated. After 2 weeks it was found to have passed naturally, and we went back to work. At another site, we were shut down due to a Great Horned Owl that was nesting at the top of the structure

A photo of a Great Horned Owl, the Barn Owls
#1 enemy, this guy is 3-4 tall. 

near the smokestack, it was nesting, we were allowed to work after a few days with directions to stay away from that structure. It was determined we could work but not within a defined distance of the nest, the bird most likely nests there every year.

The owls are important in our quest to be as self-reliant as we can be, without them we could be overwhelmed by small rodents which in turn would attract larger predators. In outdoor camping, hiking, or on a day at the park we don't need rodents climbing all over our food and equipment which in turn would invite disease. A healthy barn owl habitat is instrumental to our health and well being when coupled with a bat habitat the pest population is manageable. Owls take care of the rodents and small animals the bats take care of the mosquitos. (thousands a night) The red squirrels, well they shall remain my dog's nemesis, which is entertaining as all get out.

Thanks for reading and sharing my blog, leave a comment, question, or an Owl story you would like to share.

jacquesandkate  emergencykitsplus.com