Ringing our Barn Owl Chicks

We finally got to meet our Barn Owl chicks after erecting our Barn Owl box in the first week of May.

Members of the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and holders of a schedule 1 permit visited our 5-acre Field of Life to check the health of our Barn Owl chicks and ring them.

According to the Barn Owl Trust, “Owl ringing provides important information that underpins conservation work for owls in the same way as for all other birds and provides an efficient means of individually identifying each bird. For species such as Barn Owls, which often use the same nest boxes throughout the year, ringing is especially useful because it provides many opportunities for resighting/recapture”.

Each of the chicks were carefully extracted from the nest box by the trained, skilled ringers and given a unique metal ring bearing a number which can identify where the bird is from and how old it is.

The visit was also to determine the sex of the birds and it was confirmed that we have an all-female brood of 6 healthy Barn Owl chicks with the youngest aged 35 days and the oldest aged 46 days.

We are so pleased to provide a safe habitat for these wonderful creatures and to boost the biodiversity of the landscape.

Once again, thank you to Roger, John and Ros from BTO, Arden Farm Wildlife Network, Zoe Bell, Ian Jelly, Warwickshire Wildlife Trust and Tesco Bags of Help.