Barn Owls

 I’ve recently been helping out our local Barn Owl because of an illness in the group. I can vividly seeing my first Barn Owls as a kid in Suffolk in an old deserted wooden barn at Ford Hall Farm a few hundred metres from where we used to live. I was exploring the old farm buildings with my old Labrador, Bonzo, when one swooped down hissing and nearly took the poor old dogs head off it was that close. I realised after that we were probably close to its nest. After that we used to see them on a regular basis and when the farm was taken over and renovated they moved to a nearby hollow Ash.

Barn Owls have been regularly seen in our Cheshire village with several boxes being installed by the Wirral Barn Owl Trust (WBOT). We’ve even been fortunate enough to have had one roosting in a Tawny Owl nest box for several months one winter. A pair also evicted our local Little Owls and successfully bred in a natural tree hollow a couple of hundred metres from our house. 

Last year was a very poor year for Barn Owls locally with the nests being monitored by WBOT producing a poor return of only 17 young. This year is shaping up to be much better with over 50 being ringed in a couple of weekends. On the day I attended we ringed 23 including an impressive brood of  7.

As with all raptors and owls the egg laying is staggered so the young hatch at different times. This is a survival strategy as in times of food scarcity the older owlets can turn to canabilism & eat their younger siblings. A pretty gruesome thought & when I explained this to our two youngest granddaughters, aged 5 & 7,  I definitely saw the youngest one giving her older sister the side eye! 

Barn Owl pulli can be aged accurately by the length of the unfurled feather from the sheath of the 7th primary. As Barn Owls have 11 primaries this is best done by counting 4 in from the outer primary. This is measured during the ringing and processing of the chicks and the egg laying date can be calculated from this. Birds were also weighed and data shows that youngsters reach a maximum weight then lose some weight just before they fledge.

Young Barn Owls can be sexed at an early age by the presence or absence of black spotting on the underwing coverts and auxiliaries. Females have black spots whilst the males are generally unmarked. On older owlets it’s sometimes possible to sex by the colour of the mantle feathers with females having much more grey and the males generally having very few grey feathers.

Above & below: female Barn Owl owlet

Above & below: male Barn Owl owlet 

As A fantastic day out and it was a pleasure to be able to help. 

Norway in search of Knot.

 I’ve recently returned from Arctic Norway where I joined a team monitoring and trying to catch migratory Red Knot fattening up before they fly to their breeding grounds in Canada & Greenland. The journey involve4 three flights from Manchester with stops in Oslo & Tromso before arriving in Lakselv in daylight at midnight! Steve kindly picked me up and drove me the hours journey to our accommodation in Brenna. On the way I saw my 1st Mountain Hares, Elk and Reindeer of the trip. All three would become a daily sighting over the next two weeks.

Reindeer

Elk

A sleepless night ensued as the sun didn’t really set and kept me awake. I soon sorted the sleeping arrangements by clearing a windowless storage cupboard that was just big enough to lay my mattress down and let me sleep in darkness! 

My bedroom! 

Introduced to the rest of the team at breakfast the days plans were discussed with potential catching sites being surveyed and Knot flocks counted and legs checked for colour rings or flags. Incredibly we picked up birds from the Wirral that were flagged at Hoylake in 2024 as well as birds from Lancashire, the Wash and further afield from Dutch & Polish schemes.

37C at time of ringing in Hoylake in Feb 2024

 

37C in Borselve, Arctic Norway May 2026

Of course there were opportunities for observing other wildlife and White-tailed Eagles, Willow Grouse and Rough-legged Buzzard were seen daily. Lekking Ruff were seen at several sites - a real treat as full summer plunged male Ruff are incredible looking birds and rarely seen in the UK. The same plied to summer plumages Temminck’s Stints that were seen in good numbers. Displaying Wood Sandpipers was also a new experience for me. Bluethroats sang from every suitable habitat and Willow Warblers were seemingly everywhere. Willow Tits were relatively common and we’re quite different to the birds we see in the UK being very monochrome with very little buff / brown in the plumage. They are a different race than UK birds and very distinctive. 

Willow Grouse 

Later in the trip we started seeing the first migrating Long-tailed Skuas and Arctic Skuas .

Arctic Skua

We only managed one small catch of 33 Knot as they really weren’t playing ball. A roost site one day held no birds the following day. They seemed to be moving around at random unlike our winter catches in the UK where the high tide roosts are regularly in the same places.

These birds were fuelling up ready for their transatlantic migration with the heaviest birds being 200g. Around 30-40% heavier than wintering birds in the UK.

Canon netting involves lots of lying around waiting for the birds to come into the catching area. A very uncomfortable experience in the low temperatures and on rocky shorelines! The trick is to wrap up in as many layers as you can.

White-tailed Eagles were seen daily and were often perched up on rocks viewable from our accommodation. One of the birds photographed was ringed and it'll be interesting to see its history. These magnificent birds of prey are slowly colonising the UK after their reintroduction taking young from the Norwegian population. Their appearance caused panic in the waders and gulls and quite often the first sign of an eagles presence was the alarm calls of gulls or Oystercatchers. 

One day was particularly memorable for me not because of the birds but because of a close encounter with an Otter. I'd decided to walk the shoreline in either direction from our accommodation to check all the bays that we couldn't reach by car. I saw an Otter fishing but it couldn't smell me as I was down wind. It could see me but didn't seem to be to concerned apart from the snorting and tail slapping. I managed to get within a few metres of it whilst it fished and then hauled out  on a rock to eat its prey and have a snooze. 

The scenery was stunning with the mountains still having a snow on the highest passes. With almost 24 hour daylight there weren't any sunsets effects of the sun through the clouds and the cloud formations made up for it.

With the snow melt came the small alpine plants. Dwarf willows and birch were every where. Small alpine flowers such as s Rock Campion, Mountain Avens and Birdseye Primrose were beginning to flower and I learnt a lot from Steve and Rachel as they hunted in roadside ditches or rock screes for new plants! 

Dwarf Willow

Birds-eye Primrose

Rock Campion

Alpine Azalea

Mountain Avens

In total I recorded 94 species of bird in the two weeks I was there,. An amazing number considering how far north we were. The total included two new birds not recorded in the area before - Green Sandpiper and Hen Harrier. A fabulous place and a great experience working with a dedicated team studying Red Knot.

Bar-tailed Godwits

Short-eared Owl

Waxwing