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Goldilock's Aster - TCCT, Occombe meadow - TCCT
Pig - TCCT, Beer festival - TCCT
Barn Owl illustration - Simon Carpenter
The Barn Owl has excellent vision and is able to hunt at night in
almost total darkness. It also has incredible hearing and can locate prey just from their slight rustling in the undergrowth. Zeroing in on an unfortunate short tailed vole (the prefered prey species), the Owl will sometimes hover momentarily before plunging down with outstretched talons, it will then often carry the vole to a nearby post where it is normally swallowed whole! As well as voles, shrews and mice are also taken. Around the farm house mice, young rats, sparrows and starlings are caught too and in some areas Owls are known to take frogs in the spring. A family of 2 adults and their young can consume over 1000 rodents during their 3 month nesting period.
Barn Owls under threat……….
Wild Barn Owls are very threatened in the UK . According to the Hawk Trust (dated 1989), numbers have dropped by 70% since 1932 leaving only around 5000 pairs in the whole of the British Isles. The Barn Owl is an owl of open country, it needs traditional farmland and prefers unimproved meadows with thick hedges that provide good habitat for the voles, shrews and mice that it hunts. Loss of this feeding habitat through the intensification of farming (see the Cirl Bunting information file) is a major reason for their decline, along with loss of nesting sites as
already mentioned.
