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Mar 2024
4:29pm, 19 Mar 2024
31,510 posts
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Rosehip
The waterproof feathers thing is what daughter (zoology degree, owl project) told me - but both sound plausible and probably linked.
If you can't hear/see your prey in the rain then there is no drive to evolve waterproof feathers
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Mar 2024
4:40pm, 19 Mar 2024
4,343 posts
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jacdaw
3 barn owls and an seo all hunting in daylight today. Ignoring the seo, because they often hunt in daylight, and if there was no food they would just bugger off... suggests there are lots of barn owls, and either insufficient food, or insufficient suitable hours of darkness in which to hunt. Given barn owls hate the rain, and we seem to have had lots of very wet nights (and drier days), that would be my first thought. Second thought is that a couple of good breeding seasons and mild winter weather would mean a high recruitment and high survivorship, hence high population of barn owls, with lots of the young ones then pushed into sub-optimal territories, and struggling to feed themselves, hence daylight hunting.
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Mar 2024
4:48pm, 19 Mar 2024
21,183 posts
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flanker
Lots of chiffs singing today. Got my first glimpse of one too.
To be honest, I wouldn't know if I'd ever seen a goshawk
You'd probably know as they are quite vocal and have a very distinctive flight call - not something that could be mixed up with a sprawk. Oh, and they are noticeably bigger!
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Mar 2024
4:58pm, 19 Mar 2024
4,466 posts
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paulcook
Second thought is that a couple of good breeding seasons and mild winter weather would mean a high recruitment and high survivorship, hence high population of barn owls, with lots of the young ones then pushed into sub-optimal territories, and struggling to feed themselves, hence daylight hunting.
That’s kind of linked to one of the theories I remember doing in GCSE biology whereby predator-prey relationship patterns and numbers meant they followed continual peaks and troughs as one population had an impact on the other and vice versa.
And then that’s before you take into account the weather patterns now.
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Mar 2024
5:05pm, 19 Mar 2024
4,344 posts
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jacdaw
Owl populations very much follow the vole population cycle, which was quite regular, but climate change seems to be messing with it. Voles like snow; they can live happily tunneling under it, eating grass, and not getting eaten by owls. But we don't get much snow any more.
Barn owls are right at the northern edge of their distribution in the uk, so are hit very hard by bad winters, which are more rare these days... but they hate also rain, which is more common...
And the more old barns are converted or demolished, the fewer the nest sites.
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Mar 2024
5:08pm, 19 Mar 2024
31,511 posts
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Rosehip
vole population also follows land usage and some arable crops are less bad for them than others etc.
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Mar 2024
5:09pm, 19 Mar 2024
4,345 posts
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jacdaw
Not many barn owls left near intensive arable!
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Mar 2024
5:18pm, 19 Mar 2024
4,467 posts
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paulcook
I actually got a rare sighting last week of what I guessed was a vole near one of my regularish owl spots.
Small mammals certainly aren’t a common sighting on my runs.
From memory that was a wet night.
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Mar 2024
5:24pm, 19 Mar 2024
65,068 posts
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Derby Tup
I have seen many barn owls in the day, including one maybe 45 mins before dark last night. Little owl, SEO and barn owl are all diurnal, tawny owl very largely nocturnal and LEO nocturnal and secretive I think. Breeding season and young to feed a bit different
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Mar 2024
5:37pm, 19 Mar 2024
4,660 posts
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Curly45
Osprey spotted in Derbyshire today, not by me, but last time it was around it did fly over the house a few times 😍
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Bird song watch
Jul 2024
