Visit to the Dairy south of Chichester

Female Barn Owl (approximately 60 days old)

Saturday morning started with a 40 minute journey over to a site I monitored previously with Barrie Watson. My husband was keen for a road trip and to see the farm I was so fond of. We arrived at the farm and were met by Chris (farmer).

It has been 5 years since I last monitored this beautiful dairy farm and although much has stayed the same, a good deal has improved regarding Barn Owl and Kestrel habitat.

Chris and his team have been busy putting up boxes and have huge areas of set-a-side.

We found one adult barn owl roosting in one end of the barn and at the other end under the box was a huge pile of pellets and white wash everywhere. Unfortunately we could not reach these boxes even with the 3 section ladder.

We checked a kestrel box on the end of the new barn and found 3 warm Stock Dove eggs.

The box in the old grain store (which had owls about 10 years ago) had evidence of pellets underneath but feral pigeons had since moved in.

There are more boxes to check here but before we went to our next farm we checked in on an old dairy building which always used to have Barn Owls. The previous tenant had advised me that the roof had been taken off earlier in the year due to asbestos. I was concerned as the box is a tea chest affair with a baffle but is thinish ply wood and not designed as an outside box.

As we approached, an owl flew from the entrance to the box. We put the ladders up and found a young female inside who was about 1 week off fledging (see above).

We aim to return in the next few weeks to finish off the other boxes on the farm and to pain the box with linseed oil to water proof it and put a felt roof on the box.