I have been late for work everyday this week as a barn owl swoops through my garden and flies around looking for mice or something. it sits on the fence posts and once on the car. i cant possibly disturb it, so cant go to work until it has moved away!
It was flying around in bright sunlight this morning at about 9.15. Luckily, i dont work on wednesdays, or i wouldnt have made it in at all!
is this usual? i thought they hunted at night.
We've got 2 breeding pairs on the farm and often see them in daylight. Sitting on the fence just waiting for a vole (or mouse) to run along the grass.
Short grassland is ideal hunting territory for them so they're often seen on road verges.
They'll hunt during daylight and particularly if they've young to feed or if they're hunting is disrupted say because of ground covering snow. Ours have been out about from about 4pm.
They don't even always fly off if you drive by and if they do they'll resume hunting as soon as you've gone out of their way.
So not a good excuse for being late for work ;-) Though I freely admit to spending hours wasting time watching our owls.
A bird in the hand can make an awful mess!
Time watching owls is far from wasted!!! ;o)
The term crepuscular is often applied to barn owls so they are more than happy to hunt around dawn and dusk during daylight. Periods of high winds, snow and rain prevent them from hunting so clear days immediately after such spells are often good times to watch owls hunting during daylight.
However, they would probably do it more if it wasn't for the 'day shift' giving them considerable grief. Many species will mob owls, either because they see them as a threat or they fancy stealing their hard won prey! We've seen a number of tussles between kestrels and barn owls over the years, the kestrel usually ends up taking the barn owls dinner.
Warden Intern at Otmoor.
You have a point.... I call it "doing displacement activity".
We've got kestrels, sparrowhawk, buzzards, merlin, tawny owl and short eared owl too.
Though I frequently see the raptors mobbed by such as crows and rooks and I've seen a buzzard mobbed by the peregrine falcon (just up the valley) I've never seen the owls mobbed by anything (yet)
One of our pairs of barn owls routinely sits on the fence or on an old sundial post in our front paddock and right in front of the house... much better viewing that the television!