Barn Owl Hunting
The barn owl is nocturnal over most of its range but in great britain and some pacific islands it also hunts by day.
Barn owl hunting. Captive barn owls have lived for as long as 25 years which is likely the barn owl s true lifespan but the majority of wild barn owls don t survive more than 10 years. Barn owl in catalina state park arizona by spiecks. Barn owls tyto alba. The occurrence of daylight hunting by barn owls tyto alba bb 106.
In one clever experiment a mouse walked silently on a rubber mat while towing a rustling wad of paper tied to its tail. This beautiful nocturnal animal looks like a ghost descending on its prey. The question that we should be asking is why is it that a bird which has evolved over millions of years to be a supreme nocturnal hunter be. Get the definitive guide.
Watching a barn owl hunting is an amazing experience. Check out our hunting and feeding page. Barn owls have excellent adaptations for successful hunting and learn to do so almost entirely by their own instincts when they are 8 14 weeks old. They are generally most active at dusk and dawn typically leaving their roost site and commuting across unsuitable habitat to reach a favoured hunting area such as a patch of rough grassland.
Subscribe to bbc earth for more amazing animal videos http bit ly bbcearthsub. With a panasonic lumix gh4. Sometimes owls most often those that hunt in open country like the short eared owl hover like a helicopter above prey until they are ready to zoom in on it. In fact only a third of barn owls survive long enough to reach breeding age with predation by larger birds starvation during lean winters and car collisions all posing a serious challenge to barn owls.
How they eat prey is normally swallowed whole with indigestible parts fur bones teeth feathers etc regurgitated in large smooth blackish pellets which accumulate at traditional nesting and roosting sites. Another approach to hunting called quartering flight is to search for prey while flying as utilized by the barn owl. 416 goes back to the beginning of the last century and is an important subject that has an interesting history in the uk which i have discussed elsewhere in more detail martin 2008. The barn owl conservation handbook has a whole chapter on barn owl ecology.
Payne while a phd candidate at cornell university utilized infrared photography to document barn owls capturing mice in a dark room. Hovering takes a lot of energy. Barn owls have been found in chimneys and even down mine shafts. Near hundred end lancashire march 2015.