Our beautiful Barn Owl Rusty has been on TV! She has had an exciting time in the BBC Breakfast Studio on Sunday morning meeting the team behind the scenes and then getting her debut with presenters Luxmy Gopal and Ben Bland.
She has helped to raise awareness of the need for the right habitat and food supply chain that wild barn owls need to thrive.
Barn owls have super soft feathers for flying silently to sneak up and hunt their prey, mainly field voles and field mice. Although mainly nocturnal they are often seen quartering open meadows and farmland at dusk.
Having no water-proofing means that they struggle with bad and extreme weather and will starve rather than venture outside if it is raining. Having access to outbuildings and barns (hense the name barn owl!) and owl boxes strategically placed at each end of open fields and meadows are ideal to keep them warm and dry whilst having the opportunity to hunt.
The average life span of a wild barn owl is only 4 years old with over 70% of youngers not reaching over a year old. This can be due to not making it through their first bad winter weather, having a lack of habitat and refuge, along with being hit by vehicles as they fly over roads and lanes adjacent to fields at a low level.
Many road casualties have also been found to contain rodent poison which has entered the food chain. Cutting hedges higher adjacent to roads where fields are either side, managing areas of tussocky grass or meadows, not using rodent poison, and putting up or sponsoring an owl box are among the many things we can do to help. See more information shared by the barn owl trust website.
If you would like to learn more about the secret world of our native barn owls then why not book onto our much loved ‘Owl Prowl’ experience where you can get up close and personal to one! Or buy it as a fabulous gift for someone special you know who loves nature!
Our experience includes handling and flying a variety of owls in particular from our native Britain, in the beautiful grounds of the falconry centre at Acton Bridge, Cheshire.
We are open until 31st October and places are limited as we aim to keep quality in mind with a small number of participants – please ring to book in advance for that special date!
Call 07974064078 and we will be happy to help. We look forward to hearing from you, Nanette & Phil
