Barn Owl Decline

Sorry to hear about your local Barn Owls.

The Goshawk is a native British species, once pretty widespread, but it was wiped out by persecution a couple of centuries ago. Some of the recolonisers that founded our current Goshawk population were undoubtedly of captive origin, but there's no denying that the Goshawk has a rightful place among our avifauna.

As you say, Goshawks do take other, smaller birds of prey from time to time (as do most owls and raptors), but as far as I'm aware, Goshawk predation is not considered a factor in Barn Owl population dynamics in general. The two species have coexisted in the British Isles for millennia, and don't share much habitat anyway, the hawk being a forest species and the owl a bird of open countryside. The Barn Owl's problems across the UK as a whole are principally down to dramatic habitat changes, but there are signs that it may now be staging a recovery in its numbers.

As Aiki has already said, the goshawk is far from being a foreign immigrant but was also one of the birds of prey that suffered badly as a result of human persecution, and still suffers from persecution to this day.  They belong in the UK as much as the barn owls, buzzards and other predators that live here.  The goshawk that took your owl was only doing what comes naturally to ensure it's own survival - they don't have the luxuary of a supermarket to pop into for their dinner afterall!  Barn owl numbers are very closely linked to the numbers of their food supply - in particular voles which go through fluctuations in populations with high populations (good years for barn owls) being followed by a drop in numbers (bad for barn owls).  The loss of hedgerows and use of rodenticides had bad impacts on the barn owls food supply and the owls themselves, and more lately the trend for converting old barns into houses impacted badly on barn owls as these conversions result in them being driven from their nesting sites as well as losing hunting territory.  Not to mention the numbers being killed on the roads each year which I strongly suspect would be far more than the numbers taken by goshawks!  The decline of barn owls (as well as other birds) is a lot more complex than simply pointing to predation as the cause of a decline.

The Barn Owl Trust works specifically to protect and conserve barn owls and their website has a lot more detailed information on the populations iof barn owls.  You can check it out here - http://www.barnowltrust.org.uk/infopage.html?Id=6

Thanks for your reply and thoughts on this matter. I knew the Goshawks origin and was just venting at our loss. the Irony is today, a young hawk was taken out of the sky in flight by two crows and killed on the ground which upset a nearby walker who was unable to verify what specie the hawk was. Anyway, thanks for your responce once again.0

Thanks for your reply. I would just like to clarify that the the Goshawk does have a supermarket in which to feed its called our farm where sixteen freerange birds roam daily and they do obviously visit. This is a natural consequence to modern agricultural production practices and we always accept that fox and hawk preditation will increase due to a dense population of prey . My only moan was it's attack on our previous three groups of barn owl inhabitants.

Regards.

I'm not sure what is this "foreigner" reference is about. Fossil evidence puts Goshawk presence in the British isles 10-120,000 years ago, so they're as native as anything gets.   Like Avocets and Ospreys they've returned to their proper place among the UK avifauna having been temporarily absent after becoming extinct towards the end of the 19th century.

Historic reductions to Barn Owl populations have little to do with predation.  I'm as big a fan of Barn Owls as the next person with a soul, but I'm not going to tar the Goshawk or any other natural predator with the scapegoat brush.

JBNTS

Apparently the winter is already giving barn owls a hard time, there is a mention of it in the blog here - http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/blogs/news/archive/2010/12/17/the-cold-continues-and-barn-owls-are-suffering.aspx

And we're not even halfway through winter yet!

Not sure about the rest of the country but round here we do not have enough Goshawks to pose a problem to Barn Owls.We do not have that many Barn Owls in our area either but that is due to shortage of suitable habitat although this is improving slightly as both local reserves and many farms are helping the situation.

It is always upsetting to lose birds we have grown used to in our locality. I have a local Barn Owl and would be really upset to see it killed.

I posted earlier about my garden Tree Sparrows and my dilemma about not wanting our local Sparrowhawks to 'get' them, but also not wanting the Sprawks to go without food.

I sympathise with you, Last Owl Standing, I really do, but I have to agree with what has been said here.

Best wishes

Pipit

Hi Last Owl Standing,

Just picking up on your thread- and thought I would try and make you feel a bit better/bit more hopeful re barn owls amidst goshawk attacks. I am just back from the Wildlife Hospital where I volunteer on a Sunday afternoon and we have 3 barn owls in and all three are doing well. We will release them as soon as they are ready. We did a successful release of  a peregrine 4 weeks ago (damage to wing from possibly crows) and have two buzzards in the outslide aviaries, two swans, a kestrel all itching for imminent release. Next Sunday we will be doing a heron releases times two. Its not all bad! Have a good week.