Barn Owls

[tameblackbirds]

This is a little scary... BBC - Earth News - British barn owls 'depend on humans' Thank goodness for man made owl boxes!

[Dogghound]

Yes the removal of isolated trees due to agricultural intensification as well as the modification of old farm buildings have had a negative impact. They seem to be doing ok here at the moment. Every HLS or FEP work I do on agricultural land I try to include barn owl nest boxes (and other nest boxes).

[Hoppingmad]

Interesting article. I saw one tonight near my home in Essex. It was trying to hunt in the grass around the edge of the local golf course. I have seen it there before several times but this time it was chased off by a crow!

[tameblackbirds]

Yes and at least the man made boxes are proving successful. Perhaps the boxes will help in the spread of these amazingly, stunning birds.

[RKB]

I just cannot understand the point of this 'news'.

Let me get this straight. People put up barn owl nestboxes, and barn owls use them and increase in number. And this is a problem?

Owls are now reliant on man, apparently, whereas owl holes in barns, never the mind the barns themselves, are less man-made?

75% of barn owls are reliant on boxes, but the number of owls has increased because people have put the boxes there in the first place? Take down the boxes, and 0% of owls will be reliant on them!

Best of all, the Tony Warburton says that nobody can know what the population of Banr owls is....but he says they're probably still in decline. How on Earth does he know this, if nobody can know?

Complete non-story, probably cooked up to coincide with a Christmas sales push of gift items on their website (first three banner headlines on the website are a quiz with a movie tie-in, the giftshop, and a membership offer - barn owls are 4th on the list of priorities).

Dogghoud - hegerow trees have been increasing for a few decades, and the highest populations of barn owls are found in the counties with low tree cover (East Yorks, Cambs etc).

[Dogghound]

Originally Posted by RKB

Dogghoud - hegerow trees have been increasing for a few decades, and the highest populations of barn owls are found in the counties with low tree cover (East Yorks, Cambs etc).

Yes but a hedgrow tree a few decades old is hardly going to support the features that barn owls require for nesting. I was simply implying that a natural nest resource was lot through insensification of agriculture. Or do you disagree with this?

The counties with low tree cover are also the counties which have the best open habitat, hence the highest populations. An area of east yorkshire arable farmland is likely to hold higher densities than a cumbria fell.

Clearly other factors are involved im just a little puzzled as to what was wrong with my post?

[RKB]

Originally Posted by Dogghound

Yes but a hedgrow tree a few decades old is hardly going to support the features that barn owls require for nesting. I was simply implying that a natural nest resource was lot through insensification of agriculture. Or do you disagree with this?

I agree that that was maybe the case up to the 80s, but it has been improving since. We're talking 30 years here, so a 50 year old young tree in 1985 would now be much better developed. But trees can't be the limiting factor anyway, because...

Originally Posted by Dogghound

The counties with low tree cover are also the counties which have the best open habitat, hence the highest populations. An area of east yorkshire arable farmland is likely to hold higher densities than a cumbria fell.

so you're saying it's habitat then, not nest sites (trees). Simple fact is, the incidence of tree nesting isn't known, as nobody has been counting, and this 'study' (or whatever it was) doesn't seem to have looked either. So you and I are just guessing here about the value of trees. Maybe they mostly nest in barns?

Originally Posted by Dogghound

Clearly other factors are involved im just a little puzzled as to what was wrong with my post?

Only that you seemed to be saying 'agri intensification has removed all the trees, so they have nowhere to nest, that's why they're reliant on boxes', which would be a bit of a leap of faith. We haven't been losing trees for 30 years (so more nest sites should be becoming available) and we maybe didn't lose enough anyway so that barn owls were affected (cf East Yorks).

I'm uneasy with this idea that nest site loss has driven a decline in barn owls, firstly because the barn owl population data is pretty unreliable, the idea that they were facing extinction was largely driven by one man's publicity drive a few decades ago (and he's still at it), nestbox programs have possibly enabled barn owls to breed in areas where they previously couldn't even 100 years ago (e.g. parts of easten England) or breed at higher density, so it's all based on faith and hunches and not actual evidence. We don't know how many there were to begin with, and where they nested, and we don't know why they declined. All we know is that they like all the boxes we put up, and there are probably more than we thought there were, and they are probably increasing.

[Dogghound]

Im a little unsure what your problem is RBK!

I simply responded to a thread and you have basically picked apart my answer and started making all sorts of assumptions. I didnt say its habitat or trees i simply implyed they are likely to have had an affect. I dont come on this forum for people like you to start questioning every word I write!

When did I say they were reliant on boxes?

when did I agree with this report?

And why is it whenever I write a post on this forum someone like you twists it round onto me?

I just get to the point where I honestly dont give too hoots.