Barn Owls
These Barn Owls are currently part of Rehabitat's Barn Owl Breeding and Release Program
Digital Images from June 5, 1999
Digital Images from June 16, 1999
Digital Images from June 30, 1999
Barn Owls
The barn owl is a long-legged, light colored bird with a white, heart-shaped face. It is sometimes called the monkey-faced owl. A barn owl is 15-20 inches in length with a 44-inch wingspan; females weigh about 24 ounces, males up to 20 ounces. Both sexes have whitish or pale cinnamon underparts and buffy or rusty upper plumage.A barn owl has neither of two characteristics often associated with owls; "horns" or Hooting-type calls. Its calls include a long, drawn-out whistle, loud hisses and snores.
Barn owls nest in barns, church towers, hollow trees, old buildings, silos and ventilating shafts. They do not build nests, although casting may form a base for the eggs. They usually nest in March, April or May and lay from 3-11 eggs (generally 5-7) at two to three day intervals. Incubation takes about 33 days.
After the eggs hatch, both parents feed the young. Nestling barn owls can eat their weight in food every night. Young leave the nest at 9-12 weeks, after flight feathers develop.
Barn owls hunt open fields, flying low over the ground in search of prey. Ornithologists studied 200 disgorged pellets from a pair of barn owls that nested in a tower of the Smithsonian Institution Building in Washington, D.C. The pellets contained 444 skulls, including those of 225 meadow mice, 179 house mice, 20 rats and 20 shrews as owl’s main prey items. Small birds, insects, flying squirrels and rabbits occasionally are taken.
