Barn owl
Tyto alba · Open farmland across the UK and Ireland
~33 cm tall · 90 cm wings
- Barn owl: about 330 mm tall, 900 mm wingspan, white underneath, golden-buff above, white heart-shaped face, dark eyes. Lives in open farmland, not woodland. source
- Barn owls don’t hoot. They shriek, hiss and snore, and they rarely call. source
- In Britain, barn owls eat mainly small mammals: field voles make up about 45% of the diet, common shrews 20% and wood mice 15%. source
- The Barn Owl Trust says barn owl hearing is one of the most sensitive of any animal ever tested. source
- Barn owls typically lay 4–6 eggs (average 4.7). source
- BTO lists the UK barn owl population at 4,000 pairs (2016) and a breeding-population increase of 223% (1995–2024). source
- Barn owl: Green-listed in the UK (Birds of Conservation Concern). source
- Most barn owls die in their first year, so average life expectancy in Britain is only about 18 months. source
- The barn owl’s heart-shaped facial disc collects sound and directs it toward the ears. source
- A barn owl’s ear openings sit at different heights, one higher than the other, so the brain can work out exactly where a sound comes from. source
- The Barn Owl Trust thinks the white underside is most plausibly an anti-silhouette trick, because from below a pale bird is harder to see against the sky. source
- Barn owls don’t build a nest. They lay on a layer of old pellets. source
- Barn owl home ranges are huge: up to 5,000 hectares in winter, shrinking to about 350 ha in summer. source
- Once a barn owl settles a home range it will almost certainly stay for life, and barn owls are very faithful to their mates. source
- In Great Britain the western barn owl also hunts by day, though it is nocturnal over most of its range. source
- Until 2016–18 the barn owl was treated as one worldwide species. It has since been split into four, and Britain’s bird is now the western barn owl, Tyto alba. source
- The barn owl has many folk names, including ghost owl and demon owl. source
- Records differ: the Barn Owl Trust says the oldest barn owl found in Britain was 18 years old (European record 30), while BTO’s ringing record is 15 years 3 months. source
Scientific name checked against Wikipedia.
