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Western Barn Owl

Western Barn Owl

Tyto alba

Identify the Western Barn Owl by sound or photo and log your sightings with Birdpass.

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The Western Barn Owl is the familiar pale, heart-faced barn owl of Europe, south-western Asia and Africa, now treated as separate from the American and Eastern Barn Owls. It is golden-buff and grey above and white to buff below, flies silently and gives an eerie screech rather than a hoot. It hunts small mammals over open country and often nests in barns, churches and hollow trees.

Did you know?

  • It does not hoot – its call is a long screech.
  • Its folk names include “ghost owl” and “church owl”.

Voice

Song
Call
Flight call

About the species

Identification

A slim owl with long wings and legs and a very pale look. Its most distinctive feature is the white, heart-shaped face bordered by a thin rusty rim, with black eyes; the back is pearl-grey and golden-buff with fine black and white spots. The sexes look alike, though males are often paler and females more spotted; the underparts vary from white to orange-buff depending on subspecies.

Family

Tytonidae

Size

Large (crow)

Colours

white, orange, grey, brown

About the habitat

Open country – farmland, rough grassland and savanna – with old buildings or hollow trees for nesting and roosting; absent from the far north.

Diet

Mainly small mammals such as voles, mice and shrews, located by sound in darkness; occasionally small birds and other animals.

Behaviour

Mostly nocturnal, but in hungry times it also hunts by day, quartering low and silently over grassland and locating prey by its exceptional hearing. Pairs usually mate for life and nest in cavities in trees, old buildings or cliffs, often using nest boxes; the female incubates while the male brings food. Its call is a long, drawn-out screech.

Sources

Photo: Steven Ward, CC BY 2.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barn Owl, Lancashire.jpg

Sound: Sonothèque ADVL, XC707104, CC0 1.0 https://xeno-canto.org/707104

Sound: Sonothèque ADVL, XC707105, CC0 1.0 https://xeno-canto.org/707105

Sound: Joost van Bruggen, XC432000, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://xeno-canto.org/432000

Text: Wikipedia (English), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_barn_owl

See also