2005, THE BIG BARN OWL YEAR

I’d returned in mid May from a month birding Texas and Canada eager to start our round of Barn Owl nest box inspections, RUBOP have 130 boxes in the Rushcliffe Borough and we had to get round them all in the next 2 weeks. This is the only reliable time to catch adults in the box and as many are ringed, we like to know where they’re from and check continuality from year to year.

All of our box maintenance had been completed in October and the boxes had been left alone over the winter and early spring, allowing any Barn Owls to settle. A roosting owl will often stay in the box to breed.

My colleague Clive James had taken a couple of calls from landowners who said they’d seen Barn Owls using the boxes so early signs were encouraging.

I started with a short trip to the box that had given us our first chicks in 2000; this box hadn’t been used since 2001, the pair moving to another box. I found an unringed female on small young, she played dead so was easy to catch and she gave me my first solo ringing experience, I was newly qualified to ring Barn Owls and other species likely to be found in our boxes. She was soon back with her babies and I ringed 5 healthy chicks 5 weeks later which all fledged. I later caught the male who’d been ringed as an adult in the same box in 2002.

Next day had us checking a box very close to a house at Ruddington; the lady had reported Barn Owl activity in the box only 5m from her patio door. Again, a female and young, this one didn’t play dead but faced up to me, “Come on if you’re hard enough”; she seemed to say.

I tried to grab her but she got me first and the talons were still in my hand when she came out; she was already ringed so we read the ring, trying not to bleed on her too much. She was soon returned and subsequentially raised 6, our biggest brood of the year. The female turned out to have been ringed in the Trent Valley in east Notts by the Wildlife Conservation Partnership and had moved about 16 kms, one of four 1st year females moving from that area to breed in our boxes; remarkably, 2 sisters were in boxes only about 1km apart.

So it went on, we were finding Barn Owls in boxes that had never been used before and some of the regular boxes still held pairs.

Once the initial inspections are done you can concentrate on the boxes with Owls; young Barn Owls are in the box for about 2 months after hatching so there’s no mad rush to ring the young, we prefer to ring them at about 6 weeks when they’re almost fledged as you can usually sex them then as well.

There’s also a few disappointments; you go to boxes expecting to see young Barn Owls and find it occupied by a Stock Dove, we had about 3 pairs desert and another brood of 3 which died after ringing at about 9 weeks old.

Into August and most of the young have dispersed and you have to check all the boxes again for 2nd broods. A few pairs attempt 2nd broods but usually move to a nearby box. We had 2 pairs succeed and ringed our last chick on 24th September.

Over the year, we ringed 60 chicks (5 died after ringing) and mainly due to me being able to catch adults, we also ringed or controlled 21 adults.

Other records of note include a male possibly paired with his mother; a 1st year female I’d ringed as a chick in 2004 raising 2 of her own; a male caught with a female and seven eggs in a nest box which failed and then caught again 2 weeks later with another female in a tree hole, breeding in the tree was unconfirmed due to the depth of the hole but the pair did raise another brood of 5 in a nearby box; also another female that deserted eggs in one box and was then found in an adjacent box with another (unringed) female; what was going on there then?

RUBOP ended the year with 15 boxes fledging 57 young plus 2-3 more unringed from a tree hole.

Other news: 2006, 2004, 2003