iSpy a barn owl
Never miss the latest news about Suffolk’s barn owls, find out more about their secret lives and how you can help them thrive in our countryside.
Suffolk Wildlife Trust supports landowners, farmers and community groups to take action for Suffolk’s barn owls. With your help we can bring back Suffolk’s barn owls.
So, get involved, keep an eye on our barn owl live webcam and let us know in the comments section if you see any interesting behaviour.
Oka Last, Barn Owl Adviser
oka.last@suffolkwildlifetrust.org www.suffolkwildlifetrust.org
This blog is part of Suffolk Wildlife Trust's Heritage Lottery funded work to help more people take action for local wildlife
Two become three as orphan raised by foster parents
5th November 2012
“Later barn owl broods can face difficult challenges as parents go into moult and are less able to hunt to feed their young. But this story has a happy ending as area co-ordinator for Suffolk Wildlife Trust’s work to Bring Back Suffolk’s Barn Owl, Chris McIntyre reveals:
This year East Anglia experienced its wettest July ever. Pairs that managed to fledge their young early, and escape the bad weather, were able to consider second broods. The health and survival of chicks from late broods is often threatened by the onset of moulting in males that are required to feed their partners and chicks. This state of moult often weakens the parents and providing chicks with food becomes difficult, often resulting in abandonment and subsequent starvation.
We received a report of a young barn owl on a driveway in Starston, in South Norfolk. It was thought to be a survivor of a late brood abandoned by its parents in moult. Chicks, presumably its siblings, in a nearby box were found to have died of starvation. The orphaned chick was taken to the Suffolk Owl Sanctuary at Stonham Barns with the hope of bringing it back to full health. The young owl quickly gained weight and was soon eating six mice a day, so we now had a dilemma!
Owls like this can’t be released into the wild as they have to be taught to hunt by their parents. If captive birds are released then they would starve to death within days! So foster parents were sought for the chick - a method which had worked well two years previously - but where would we find a family of nestlings of a similar age so late in the season? Fortunately I had a box in my garden that the Trust’s business sponsors had visited the previous week. It was occupied by two healthy chicks of a similar age and so the orphaned chick was introduced to its new home!”
Good News! Yes all three chicks have fledged and are often seen around the box, which Chris regularly checks.
Suffolk Wildlife Trust is working in partnership with Suffolk Ornithologists’ Group to bring Suffolk’s Barn Owl Back to the county. (Photo: C McIntyre)
Wow! another barn owl chick ringed - this female individual is 7 weeks old, nearly ready to fledge
crabbsnest Asks:
ispyabarnowl Said:
…so glad to hear that you enjoyed watching our little Chick P’s. We will miss them!
Just to let everyone know that the webcamera will be switched off shortly, but watch this space for more barn owl news coming soon! We won’t see much of Mr & Mrs P until next year as they spread their wings further afield, if you visit Redgrave & Lopham Fen you may be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of them or their Chick P’s floating over the Fen.
These three cute fluff-balls were ringed on a farm in Whepstead as part of a training session for the Trust’s Conservation Advisers. This ensures that our Advisers have experience and knowledge of barn owl conservation which they can use to help others to help barn owls. Contact us if you manage private or community land and would like to help Suffolk’s barn owls.
Oka Last
Barn Owl Adviser
Now that Chick P’s have flown, another barn owl story from just down the road…
Simon Evans, Volunteer Area Coordinator and Barn Owl Ringer, tells us in his own words the story of our barn owl chicks at Suffolk Wildlife Trust’s Wangford Warren nature reserve:
On Saturday 16th June, having ringed two broods of young Barn Owls at Lakenheath Fen RSPB Reserve, Suzanne Harwood (Reserve Administrator) and I made our way to the nearby SWT Reserve at Wangford Warren to check the box there. As we approached, an adult male exited and on inspection, the box was found nearly full of sticks, indicative of Jackdaws having used it to nest. There was just enough room left for the male Barn Owl to get in and roost! On removal of the old Jackdaw nest material we discovered four old, cold Barn Owl eggs beneath all the sticks. It appeared that the Owls had initially tried to use the box but had been forced out by the Jackdaws.
Just 150 yards away there was an old pole box erected by former West Suffolk Reserves Manager Joe Davis some years previously. It appeared from a distance to look rather dilapidated and unsecure, especially in the strong westerly wind. I wonder? When we got about 20 feet from the box, an adult female exited and it was obvious from the noise within the box that she had young. Oh dilemma! Is the box stable enough? I offered the pole a little resistance to see and ‘crack’, the pole gave way. So there I was holding the 12 foot pine pole with the box on top, preventing it from falling. A quick phone call and a 27 minute wait saw Lakenheath Reserves Manager David Rogers and volunteer Roger Bacon arrive to assist. We slowly lowered the box to the floor to discover four young Owlets, three at around three weeks old and one ‘runt’. So what to do? The pole box was rotten so we couldn’t re-use it and so I made the decision to relocate the young, their pellets and the four stashed prey items to the A Frame box where ‘dad’ had been roosting.
Over the next three weeks I watched the box from a distance, hoping that the relocation would work. I was very relieved to witness the male returning to the box with prey, especially just two days later! On the 10th July, I decided to see what was going on in the box. I nervously approached and opened the inspection hatch unsure of what would unfold. To my absolute delight, four very healthy young Barn Owls looked back at me, apparently unperturbed by the whole experience. The three males and one female were ringed, measured and then returned to their new home. Convinced that the pole box would have blown over in the wind and that I’d made the right decision to intervene, I was very pleased with the outcome!
Find out more about Simon’s volunteering with Suffolk Wildlife Trust here http://www.suffolkwildlifetrust.org/about-us/news/2011-european-year-of-the-volunteer—simon-evans/
Once the Chick P’s have fledged they will hang around the nest box for a few days or even weeks, hoping to get food from Mr & Mrs P for as long as possible. Mr & Mrs P will train their Chick P’s to hunt for their own food, and once they have got in some hunting practice the Chick P’s will be sent on their way by Mr & Mrs P.
The Chick P’s will fly away from their fenland home to find their own territory…perhaps another cosy Suffolk Wildlife Trust barn owl nest box a few miles away!
Have they or haven’t they? Look carefully and we can see a few tail feathers moving at the top of the webcam view. The Chick P’s are most likely sitting on the top shelf of the nest box looking out of the hole. This is what we call ‘branching out’ where the Chick P’s will hop in and out of the nest box and maybe along a nearby branch - it will take a little while for them to get used to the big wide world outside their cosy nest box which has been their home for the past few months. Once the Chick P’s take the plunge they will take their first flight - this is when they have fledged (left the nest).
Yes it’s official, Mr & Mrs P are the proud parents of three daughters - our volunteer Area Coordinator, Patrick Barker, who is licensed to ring barn owls, carefully measured and weighed our Chick P’s before placing metal rings around their legs -this helps us to identify these individual birds and find out more about their future lives.
Vital statistics on Tuesday 3rd July
The oldest Chick P was 44-45 days old weighing 308g. Patrick can tell us the age of our Chick P’s by measuring how much feather has unfurled from it’s sheath on the seventh primary feather (the big feathers on the wing used for flying).
The middle Chick P was 49-50 days old weighing 310g and the youngest Chick P was 39 days old weighing a whopping 316g!
So all in all, although there is a mix of ages of Chick P’s, they all are of a similar weight which means that the youngest Chick P is doing well competing with her siblings for food. Go Chick P no. 3!
Our three chick P’s were ringed yesterday by site manager Kerry Vaughan - what a tough job she has! All are developing well.
