Some birds are timid and secretive, and difficult to see. Other birds are very obvious and barn Owls definitely fall into this last category. They are particularly obvious in summer as they hunt in daylight when they are feeding young, particularly in July. But not always ?
Last Autumn we installed an additional Barn Owl box near the old one along the shore of the Main Lake, which can be seen from the Visitor Centre gallery windows. This is because the males like to chill in a close but different roost site to the female bringing up the kids. It seems even Barn Owls need a man shed. I checked both boxes during the spring breeding bird surveys and both were empty. I was a little surprised by this as Stock Doves bred in the older box last year, but no sign of them this year even though their number are increasing here.
Then during the summer, Lockhart Horsburgh who is one of our Saltholme Guides, took this amazing photo of a Barn Owl hunting over the meadow one evening during a visitor event.
But the Barn Owl wasn’t seen again. We suspected that a bird may be roosting at the entrance to the Wildlife Watchpoint hide, as whitewash appeared on the walls. I installed a remote camera but no birds triggered it. Then yesterday I went to check the older box as I was going to replace it with a new one. I wobbled the pole and thought to myself that it definitely needed replacing. Just in case, I checked the box by scraping the sides to mimic a predator climbing to the box, and a Barn Owl came hurtling out towards me, then veered off over the meadow. I don’t know who got the biggest fright, but it looks like that tatty old box will be staying there for a while yet.