Time and effort

Many Barn Owl sites are fairly accessible, once you know where they are. Others are more difficult, occasionally involving multiple ladders and ropes to climb to the nest. Some nests have been monitored for many years, including this one in Co. Kerry, but the time and effort involved to reach them can be considerable. Have a look at this extraordinary place...

Screengrab of the derelict house (John Lusby).

It's hard to believe places like this exist, but when you are in the business of Barn Owl surveying, it becomes apparent just how many derelict buildings there are dotted around the Duhallow countryside.

Long-abandoned by people, now occupied by bats and Barn Owls (Photo: M.O'Clery).

Journey through the building as John Lusby investigates the Barn Owl nest (under licence from NPWS and kind permission from the owner). (Video: John Lusby).

To reach the Barn Owl nest at this site involves climbing up through the derelict house, past gaping holes in the floors, past crumbling masonry and long-forgotten items of furniture, past a room where bats hang from the ceiling, out an upper window, and onto a roof. From there, a ladder is lifted into place to climb the last bit of slate roof to reach the nest – a hole in the chimney, about 20 metres (50 ft) high. 

Duhallow owls to feature in RTE documentary

 Documentary maker, Colin Stafford Johnson joined the Duhallow Raptor Conservation Project team for two days filming on Wednesday and Thursday last. Colin and his team, Dom on camera and Craig on sound, were able to film John Lusby as he ringed Barn Owl chicks at various locations around Cork and Kerry. It is hoped the programme will air in the autumn.

John Lusby retrieves one of two chick from the chimney of a derelict cottage in Co. Kerry...

... filmed by the crew from the 'Living the Wildlife' series.

Colin holds one of the chicks (Photos: M.O'Clery).

A Dingle visitor to Duhallow

A 're-trap' is when a bird is already ringed, then once again trapped and released, sometimes at the same site, sometimes elsewhere. In the past six years, with an ever-growing number of Barn Owls being ringed throughout Ireland, the number of re-traps has also risen. They can give an extraordinary insight into a Barn Owls life, its movements and lifespan, and demonstrate the valuable information that can be learned from ringing birds.

When John Lusby inspected this site in Duhallow on Friday last, he found a Barn Owl in the chimney of the disused house. 

(You can click on any of the photos for a closer view)

John Lusby inspecting the chimney at a site in Duhallow (under licence). Barn Owls had bred here in 2010, but were absent in 2011 (M.O'Clery).

To his surprise, it was an adult bird and already ringed. From his database, he discovered the bird was a female and had been ringed as an adult near Ballyferriter on the Dingle Peninsula last summer, 80 km to the west. Then, she had been trapped and ringed by John, along with the male and her four young, at their nest in a nest box. She was at the time one year old, so now would be two.

A two year-old female Barn Owl, originally ringed near Ballyferriter (M.O'Clery).

The ring on her right leg bearing her unique identifying serial number (M.O'Clery).

The nest box at Ballyferriter was predated in the past three weeks, the chicks most likely taken by a Pine Marten, so this raises the question, did she leave her nest in Ballyferriter after the young were taken? Or has she been in Duhallow for a while, and the Ballyferriter site taken over by another female? When examined by John, she had a brood patch on her stomach (an area of bare skin for transferring body warmth onto her eggs) and was, at 480 grammes, very heavy for an adult bird. It is possible she was full of eggs and about to lay at the Duhallow site.

She was returned safely to the chimney, leaving us puzzling how little we know about the movements and habits of Barn Owls in Duhallow, but grateful for this small but detailed insight into this wandering female's life. We will check back at this site to see what happens.

...and yet another unusual Barn Owl nest

Barn Owls can nest in a variety of sites, once the basic criteria are met – undisturbed, dry, large enough to take a family of owls, and usually high enough to be out of the reach of ground predators. We've already seen some of the more unusual nest sites in Duhallow, such as the tree nests HERE, and HERE. 

Around Ireland, the list of nest sites also includes old churches, derelict buildings of all types, quarries, chimneys, castles and more recently of course, nest boxes. But how about this one? Not quite in Duhallow, but not far from it either. The only Barn Owls we know of in Ireland that have chosen to nest in a water cistern… Filmed yesterday.

Barn Owl nest, in a water cistern, Co. Kerry, June 2012 (Filmed under licence from NPWS. M.O'Clery).

Feeding time

Below a short video of an adult Barn Owl arriving at dusk at a tree nest site in Duhallow.

The adult arrives (bottom left) before flying to the nest entrance with the prey for the chicks (M.O'Clery. Filmed under licence from NPWS).

Before the adult arrives, the chicks make a regular snoring call, demanding to be fed, but as the adult arrives with the prey, there is a sudden clamour to get the offering. Older chicks will call loudly like this throughout the night.

Third phase of Long-eared Owl Survey under way

Three 10km squares in Duhallow are undergoing a thorough survey for Long-eared Owls. The first phase in early spring involved tape playback of the Long-eared Owl's calls to elicit responses from adults holding territory. The second, third and fourth phases are to listen for young Long-eared Owl chicks in the same areas during June, late June/July and August respectively. 

With the third phase now underway, the number of possible territories stands at 3, 3 and 7 in each of the 10km squares. However, early indications are also that several of the known nests have failed, either due to predation by Hooded Crows or Pine Martens, or possibly due to the recent heavy rainfall. On the other hand, some nesting areas which weren't apparent from the playback phase have been found by locating the loud chicks. When the third and fourth phases are completed it will be possible to work out a thorough account of the population density of this elusive species.

Inside a Barn Owl nest

Ringing birds at the nest gives valuable information about the young, such as their weight (and thus their state of health) as well as brood size (number of chicks) and their stage of growth. From this you can also work out the dates they hatched, and the dates the eggs were laid, all immensely important in trying to apply conservation measures for this secretive species.

Female Barn Owl in front of two chicks, at their nest, which is about a metre (3 feet) along a horizontal shaft of an old chimney system in a derelict house in Co. Kerry. The floor of the nest is covered in dried pellets of fur and bone which over time have actually formed a dry and insulated floor  (Photo, taken under licence from NPWS: John Lusby).

Occasionally one or both Barn Owl adults will be caught at a nest, and in this case at a site in Kerry, the female was still attending the two chicks. She was carefully removed, along with the two chicks, for ringing. We had also caught and ringed a female at this site in 2011, but were a little surprised to find that this female was unringed, and therefore not the same which successfully reared two young last year. 

Female Barn Owl wing showing uniformly aged flight feathers, indicating that she is one year old. You can click on the image for a closer view  (Photo: M.O'Clery)

Feathers on Barn Owls are moulted (replaced) in a known sequence, and the main flight feathers only start to moult after their first year. In the photo, you can see that all the main flight feathers are of equal length and wear, so we can conclude that this female is one year old. In an older bird, there would be an obvious difference between one or more new feathers which would grow to replace older feathers.

Long-eared Owl duet

Some audio, taken two days ago, of two well-grown Long-eared Owl chicks calling from a wooded area near Newmarket. These are the chicks recorded in an earlier post HERE. Compare how much stronger their voices are after 18 days. The two are calling alternately from perches high in trees about 30 metres apart and the sound was carrying for almost 700 metres on this calm, still night.

Two Long-eared Owl chicks calling (M.O'Clery).

The young owls are flying competently at this stage, and were well away from their nest.

Another extraordinary Barn Owl nest

While surveying dense woodland in Duhallow for Long-eared Owls on Saturday night last, the sound of 'snoring' Barn Owl chicks was certainly not expected. Barn Owls are typically birds of open country, foraging over field edges and rough grassland, yet there was no denying that somewhere within that dense, dark forest there was the continuous 'snoring' of Barn Owl chicks. It took a bit of time to pinpoint the sound, but it was eventually tracked to a cavity in the trunk of huge Cypress, with a Barn Owl nest containing certainly two, perhaps three young, probably about 25-30 days old, being fed by the parents. Here's a photo of the tree, taken the following afternoon.

Barn Owl nest entrance (circled) in dense woodland in Duhallow (M.O'Clery).

From below, there were no visible signs of the nest – no pellets, feathers or droppings – and the entrance is hidden by ivy. One of the most difficult nests to find, and really only detectable by the calling chicks. The nest entrance is about 20 feet from the ground, so it may be possible to ring the chicks in the coming weeks.

This is the third Barn Owl tree nest to be found in this 10 km Survey square. It brings to five the number of known nests in the square, the highest of any 10 km square in Ireland. It is also the only 10 km square in Ireland with more than one tree nest, and the only nest so far discovered in Ireland that is within dense woodland. 

More on this nest soon…

Video of Long-eared Owl ringing

A video of the ringing of a Long-eared Owl chick near Newmarket, 4th June 2012 (M.O'Clery).