Drying out time for Barn Owls

The past few weeks have been very hard for our resident Barn Owls as prolonged cold, wet and windy weather brings a high risk of starvation due to lack of opportunities to hunt.

Barn Owl depend on their sense of hearing to catch small prey species at night which can be hidden by dense vegetation and, with specially adapted soft feathers to enable them to fly slowly and almost silently, periods of strong wind can mean Barn Owls are unable to hunt.

Barn Owl feathers also lack waterproofing, leading to the Owls quickly becoming saturated and unable to hunt.

Hopefully the return of drier weather this week will help our resident Barn Owls get out and about hunting.

We were very pleased to receive two lovely photos last week from one of our favourite wildlife photographers who was visiting Nidderdale to catch up with the local owls.

Many thanks to David Tolcher for sending these in.

We are always pleased to hear how the Barn Owls are doing in the dale and as they take every opportunity to catch up on their hunting it is always possible to see them out and about during day light hours after spells of bad weather.