Template:Watching the Barn Owls

Watching the Barn Owls

Not a portable wildlife camera

I've not had great deal of success with the portable wildlife cameras currently available, they need to be really close to the owl box to record reasonable pictures especially at night, on most of the portable wildlife cameras that I'm aware of the batteries need to be changed regularly and to replay recordings, the memory card needs to be taken out of the camera. This means getting really close to the owl box and the owls, which I am very reluctant to do. Another problem is that the recordings are triggered by motion detection, in a tree lined copse, especially when in leaf, the camera is likely to be triggered constantly. I don't wish to put you off trying, but I would recommend you borrow one first to see if it's going to give you the results you expect.

A hard-wired video camera

We have an IP security camera system which uses cheap CAT5 network cable to connect the cameras. This powers the camera and carries the video and sound back to the recorder. It should easily be able to run at distances of 100 metres (300 feet). The security camera system records constantly and recordings can be accessed by a networked PC or even a mobile phone. It's not a trivial system to setup but it does give fabulous results - we can even sit indoors of an evening and watch the owls on TV. Much better than watching TV.

You could also use a hard-wired security system like this to record owls actually in the box with the young. Just make sure you install it before you mount the box in the tree and it becomes occupied!

Why Wise Old Owl?

This is only my personal view but apart from actually looking intelligent, when watching the owls behaviour on camera we've often seen them sitting on a branch for more than two hours before moving back to the box or off out hunting. This puts you in mind of them sitting and thinking! Where we see them exhibit this behaviour it's probably not because they are hunting as they are over a massive bramble patch which would prevent them landing or attacking prey.

Barn Owl Synchronised Pair Video

Our nesting pair doing a bit of synchronised flying - unfortunately there's no sound on this vidoe as exprecince has shown they probably screech during this flying encounter.

Barn Owl on our washing line!

'Noddy', landing on our washing line! recorded from another camera.

Evidence that you have Barn Owls

When we did our evening nature walk with Nigel, a local gamekeeper from Church Farms, Stow Bardolph, he showed us underneath where barn owls had been perching. Their scat or faeces is very white, almost chalky due to the high protean carnivorous diet. There's very little evidence of solid matter though, almost all from liquid it seems. Different owls seem to use different perches, but very often the same perches, which increases the chance of seeing their scat. Look around the ground under trees near you owl box for evidence of this - it's pretty obvious once you spot it. It was even seen under where the owl sat on our washing line.

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  A barn owl has been sitting above here!

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  The two fledglings a few months after hatching

Great tit sees off the Barn Owl!

This morning at 5 am we happened to watch one of our nesting pair of Barn Owls fly across our field and land on an occupied Great Tit nest box we mounted on a telegraph pole. The great tit returned while the Barn Owl was still sitting on the roof of the tit nest box. To our amazement, The Great Tit constantly flew around the stationary owl; probably vocalising although we could not hear as we we re indoors. After a few minutes of this the Barn Owl flew across the field and out of sight, with the Great Tit appearing to chase the Barn Owl off!

Sounds highly improbably, but I can assure you it really happened. No photographs to prove this I'm afraid.