Barn Owls can breed in their first year and the breeding cycle often starts in late winter. By early spring pairs are usually spending much of their time in and around their intended nest site. During courtship, or pair-bond reinforcement, the male spends more time hunting and presents additional food items to his mate or leaves them in the nest cavity. The female spends progressively less time hunting and as her weight increases from around 350g to 425g she comes into what's called "breeding condition". Copulation generally occurs each time food is presented and this, combined with her tip-top condition, helps to ensure all the eggs are fertile. However, it's not just a matter of food and sex.
Most pairs also engage in mutual preening and cheek rubbing. They "talk" to each other in the nest making a wide variety of soft chittering and hissing calls, and their aerial antics (chasing while screeching) around the nest site can be quite energetic!
Also, there's much individual variation. Nest cameras have revealed that some males are very active and attentive, some surprisingly lethargic, and others are hardly ever present. In almost every case the male is present at the nest site (with the female) in the two weeks leading up to egg laying and until the clutch is complete. This is when males are most vocal, defending their mate against other males and leaving only to hunt.
Source: Barn Owl Trust
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| May 29th Daytime Love |
12 barn owl fascinating facts
Discover 12 fascinating facts about the beautiful barn owl.
1 The barn owl was voted Britain’s favourite farmland bird by the public in an RSPB poll in July 2007.
2 Historically, the barn owl was Britain’s most common owl species, but today only one farm in about 75 can boast a barn owl nest.
3 Barn owls screech, not hoot (that’s tawny owls).
4 The barn owl can fly almost silently. This enables it to hear the slightest sounds made by its rodent prey hidden in deep vegetation while it’s flying up to three metres overhead.
5 The barn owl’s heart-shaped face collects sound in the same way as human ears. Its hearing is the most sensitive of any creature tested.
6 Barn owls are non-territorial. Adults live in overlapping home ranges, each one covering approximately 5,000 hectares. That’s a staggering 12,500 acres or 7,100 football pitches!
7 It’s not uncommon for barn owl chicks in the nest to feed each other. This behaviour is incredibly rare in birds.
8 In order to live and breed, a pair of barn owls needs to eat around 5,000 prey items a year. These are mainly field voles, wood mice, and common shrews.
9 Though barn owls are capable of producing three broods of five to seven young each year, most breed only once and produce, on average, only two and a half young. 29 per cent of nests produce no young at all.
10 91 per cent of barn owls post-mortemed were found to contain rat poison. Some owls die as a direct result of consuming rodenticides, but most contain sub-lethal doses. The effects of this remain unknown.
11 In a typical year, around 3,000 juvenile barn owls are killed on Britain’s motorways, dual carriageways and other trunk roads. That’s about a third of all the young that fledge.
12 Everyone can help barn owls. Leave a patch of rough grassland to grow wild thus creating habitat for voles, erect a super-safe deep nest box, volunteer for your local barn owl group, switch to non-toxic rodent control
Roy and Dales Eggs Clutch 2
Egg #1 1/19 7:15 am
Egg #2 1/21 8:13 am
Egg #3 1/23 9:33 am
Egg #4 1/25 1:22 pm
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http://www.cafepress.com/theowltlaws.581308640 2012 Calendar Belle Starr 7/15, 10:23 am. Pearl 7/20, 3:53 am. Boone 7/24, 10:11am Wyatt 7/25 6:35 pm, Zee 7/28 1:10 pm (eggs 2 & 4 non viable) Wyatt passed 8/3, 11:15 pm. Zee 8/4, Boone 9/2
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