Our barn owl conservation area established in 2007, has continued to grow each year to provide us with a significant benefit to the species in and around the southern Mid Sussex area. Started when the species was on the amber-listed species register under threat from habitat loss, the barn owl has, with our contribution to a national effort amongst similar groups across Great Britain, returned to a healthy population. It is, however, now dependent on artificial nest boxes supporting 85% of its population. This has placed a responsibility on our shoulders to maintain or increase our group effort to reflect and support this dependency.

 

These beautiful birds are worth all our effort to support their continuing survival.

 

Loss of natural hunting habitat through the continuous erosion of suitable countryside required to provide them with sufficient prey to sustain them, is the prime reason.

 

Their presence is often witnessed at dusk when they begin hunting for food across open countryside.

 

Human expansion taking increasingly large chunks of this terrain to provide housing and industrial development is mostly responsible. Developers are choosing to select green field applications to provide this human expansion rather than utilising existing brown field previously developed areas, as it is far easier to prepare, and less expensive to achieve than if they had to clean it up first.

 

The barn owl relies on large areas of our natural landscape to provide sufficient prey to sustain them.

 

Councils are increasingly allowing such development to happen as they are under considerable pressure from successive national governments to increase housing numbers and industrial units.

 

This is another local area of countryside that is in the process of disappearing forever in the village of Hassocks.

 

This results in the current trend of short-term thinking to maximise such results as speedily as possible, without considering the effect on the future of our natural environment and the demise of wildlife species struggling to avoid extinction.

If more intelligent long-term consideration was applied, they would see as we do, that we as a human race are equally dependent on the survival of countryside to provide us with the food and the same natural environmental qualities needed by wildlife to survive.

In an effort to offset this inevitable calamity to all, we as a group try to combat this damage as much as we possibly can with our conservation work.

 

We have provided barn owl boxes in and around southern Mid-Sussex to form a group conservation area.

 

Our barn owl conservation team therefore works ceaselessly throughout the year maintaining damaged boxes in the winter to ensure our barn owls have adequate shelter, inspecting boxes to establish breeding success in them in the summer, and recording the number that eventually fledge to boost the local population.

 

These boxes are subjected to harsh weather and physical damage and need constant upkeep to maintain in good condition.

 

It is very hard work for all concerned, as most nest box locations are great distances into the countryside and require a huge physical effort to travel to them over terrain unsuitable for vehicle access, to transport the ladders and equipment necessary to implement this.

 

The locations selected are in remote areas of countryside to meet the requirements of the barn owl.

 

To help us achieve this work we have extremely generous benefactors amongst our members, the public and other groups, who kindly support us with donations and contributions to help to financially assist us with the expensive task we undertake. We are very grateful to everyone that helps us in this way.

The team undertaking this work are dedicated and includes one member who spends hours of his life undertaking repairs and construction of boxes that are too badly damaged to be restored on site. His workshop and the engineering skills he possesses, transforms all boxes that aren’t beyond repair and requiring replacement, into rejuvenated homes for the owls. With the boxes considered to be beyond help, completely new ones are required.

 

Our team members devote a huge amount of their lives to this task.

 

We then revisit the sites the boxes were removed from and return them to their previous positions. His effort and expertise are invaluable with this conservation effort and we are extremely grateful to him for it. It also greatly reduces the continuously rising costs of materials we are faced with to achieve, especially with the cost of full replacement boxes escalating daily.

 

Hours are spent ensuring warm and dry roosting habitat for the owls is available to sustain them in all weathers.

 

This year’s results for owls breeding in our boxes was good overall, although the individual brood size was slightly smaller than other years due to the unusually hot spell experienced in early summer. This in turn affected the availability of prey for them to feed on. In times of food shortage, initially higher brood numbers can be reduced as they grow, as hungry larger chicks can consume their smaller siblings to compensate.

With our conservation area territory now extremely large due to having to offset the reductions caused by development, we managed to maintain their breeding levels to sustain their population.

The birds are classed as Schedule 1 species and their disturbance requires a permit for recording activities. Using this authorisation held to disturb the breeding occupants, we submit below some of the results we achieved with all pictures showing this year’s box residents. We encountered a huge difference in the stages of development at the first visit, with some still in egg form whilst others contained owls that were almost ready to fledge.

 

We found many boxes containing barn owl eggs on our initial visits.

 

We also found a number that contained kestrel eggs.

 

Barn owl egg incubation takes 30 to 31 days until they hatch. These are some of the near naked and blind chicks that we found had emerged in our boxes. Note the larder of dead prey collected by the parents in readiness for their development.

 

They initially form a thin coat of down called Neopile. They are very dependent on surrounding warm conditions to sustain them at this time.

 

These are owls we found showing the typical size difference often occurring between siblings, as the initial Neopile down is replaced by a thicker Mesoptile down after 12 to 14 days.

 

When the Mesoptile down is completely grown after 22 days they can control their own body temperature.

 

The distinctive barn owl facial discs begin to emerge after 12 to 13 days and the primary feather quills begin emerging with downy tufts. These pictured chicks became very familiar to us during our successive visits, as we diligently monitored their progress in an area of meadowland that our group maintains.

 

 Each visit we made recorded development and survival progress of all breeding occupants.  

 

The full feather quills begin emerging on the 25th day and body feathers rapidly form.

 

Our visits logged all changes to their development….

 

….as the instantly recognisable barn owl features began to emerge.

 

At 56 to 60 days the Mesoptile down is completely replaced by feathers and they are able to fly. 

 

At this stage they are completely indistinguishable from adults.

 

By the 56th day of development this stage is complete, although the feathers continuing growing until the 70th day. 

 

We were able to clearly see the sexes of the occupants at this time, with the female on the right exhibiting spots on the chest under the wings and a fawn collar under her facial disc.

 

The male on the left displayed completely white chest feathers.

 

At this stage they could readily fly from the box. This was one that flew out as we approached the tree the box was mounted on. Unfortunately, it was not able to sustain its flight and ‘belly-flopped’ into a surrounding field. It was gently recaptured and returned to the box to ensure its safety away from predators, as shown above.

 

This picture of the same owl naturally emerging from the box some time afterwards, which was forwarded by a friend of the very wildlife supportive landowner who was observing from a distance.

 

This picture forwarded by the same landowner, showed both the owls we had initially recorded in the box, emerging together in the twilight of the evening before they fully departed.

 

Our boxes are the roosting homes to many adult barn owls who capitalise on our effort to support them. This is one adult temporarily leaving the box to allow us to maintain it this year. It returned on our departure.

 

 With many of the sightings seen in our area of our countryside resulting from the presence of our barn owl conservation boxes, we feel a sense of achievement which sustains us through the periods of hard work and bad weather discomfort required to maintain them. 

 

The presence of kestrels in our boxes is increasing. These are those that resulted from the 5 kestrel eggs shown earlier.

 

4 resulted from the 5 eggs. There was no trace of the 5th egg.

 

They matured into very feisty fledglings on our return visits.

 

The demeanour of this one demonstrated the attitude ‘come one step closer and I will have your hand off!’ As they individually reached maturity, they progressively departed but were witnessed flying around the box position for some time afterwards.

 

Kestrels and barn owls readily are found occupying adjacent boxes and co-existing in the same countryside area, despite being rivals for the same prey. We are pleased that we are providing opportunities for both species and are hopefully making a difference to their survival prospects.