Baby Barn Owls ready to fledge

We've been overrun with gophers and field mice here at our tortoise ranch - officially Rancho Tortuga now. In keeping the pastures going and planting trees and plants for tortoise food, it often is only to see it die with all roots eaten away just as it was getting started.

My grandson, when he visited last July suggested we build a barn owl nest box to get a family going here. A pair of barn owls raising a group of chick will go through over 2000 rodents in a season. So we built and put up a barn own nest box in the middle of our property - behind the big Galapagos pasture and about 75 feet south of the barn.



Since winter, we have been watching a pair of barn owls that have adopted the nest box and are raising a clutch of babies. Just before dark we see them come and go hunting to bring back food. I had been meaning to put a camera in the nest box but didn't get it done before they had moved in. So we watch them come and go and by timing can have a pretty good idea of the stage the babies are. I knew they should be fledging soon and we hear more movement and ruckus in the box when we are near. Last night when doing my last tortoise count in the barn, I checked the nest box and could barely see some white in the opening of the box. It was 8:55pm and almost dark, but my iphone picks up much more light than the naked eye - so at 8x magnification I took this picture.




This little guy is eager to get out and I'm sure will soon be testing its wings.

I have also noticed a marked decrease in gopher activity around the ranch and we've seen very few field mice compared to previous years.


Its been a fun project for us to follow.

That is so weird. I was literally looking up dimensions and where to place these yesterday. Found a great site from the UK.

Mark, this is awesome. You've motivated me to do this too. I've got that lone empty telephone pole down toward the bottom of my ranch. I put a kestrel box there years ago and bees moved in. I took it down and re-homed the bees a few years ago, and now I think it's time to put an owl box up there. We had barn owls nesting in the big pine trees at my neighbors ranch two years ago and there were five of them flying around for a time that summer, so I know they are around.

What is the door hole dimension on your box?

Please keep us posted on their progress!

Here is my owl. I'll bring hum with next time I come up:

@Tom Your owl is looking great. I love the face of the barn owl! I remeber seeing this guy in November when just a baby.

Here's the plans I used for my nest box. I did add a few branches I cut for an entrance perch instead of an entrance platform.

This is wonderful! I love these birds.
Looking forward to seeing this thread grow!

Brenda and I will sit overlooking the Burmese enclosure with the Galapagos pasture and the the owl nest box in the distance.



We would go out about 29 min after sundown and like clockwork the male would come from his daytime roost to what seemed like, relieve the female to go hunt a bit.



She’d come back in 5-20 min and he’d go out to hunt. By then it was too dark to see. The past month it changed as the female must not need to keep the babies warm as big as they were getting. So she’d just take off hunting and they rotated bringing back food

I seem to have a memory of stroking the chest feathers of an owl once, and finding them amazingly soft. Is this right -presumably to make them even quieter when flying ?
Angie

I've always wanted to do that, but I thought the box needed to be in the shade.

Yvonne G said:

I've always wanted to do that, but I thought the box needed to be in the shade.

Click to expand...

The plans that Mark linked have a built in "heat shield". Essentially, the box has its own shade umbrella on the top and the back.

Markw84 said:

@Tom Your owl is looking great. I love the face of the barn owl! I remeber seeing this guy in November when just a baby.

Here's the plans I used for my nest box. I did add a few branches I cut for an entrance perch instead of an entrance platform.

Click to expand...

Mark,
One thing I have not been able to find is which direction to face the door. Which way did you face your door? Is it better to get the morning sun? Or south facing for sun all day? Or north facing for shade all day? Owls nest earlier than other birds, so it will still be "cold" when their babies are hatching in February or early march. I'm surprised that there really wasn't any mention of this on any of the sites I've found.

Also, I see the "partition" in the plans, but it's not clear where that goes inside the box. Is it up high near the door, or down low to keep the babies away from the door?

Tom said:

Mark,
One thing I have not been able to find is which direction to face the door. Which way did you face your door? Is it better to get the morning sun? Or south facing for sun all day? Or north facing for shade all day? Owls nest earlier than other birds, so it will still be "cold" when their babies are hatching in February or early march. I'm surprised that there really wasn't any mention of this on any of the sites I've found.

Also, I see the "partition" in the plans, but it's not clear where that goes inside the box. Is it up high near the door, or down low to keep the babies away from the door?

Click to expand...

In areas that are very hot like we have, the heat sheilds are to keep the top and south facing back a bit cooler. So the door faces north.

The partition is shown if you look carefully on the blow up picture. you can see the top of it next to the door opening. It goes next to the door opening and it extends all the way from top to bottom.

Wow Mark! How cool is that! In our area we are told that owl boxes need to be set at 40ft. My ladder goes to 18' so the box is set on the tree at 20ft. So far raccoons and squirrels love our box. LOL

congrats...owls are very cool!

My grandson and I also put up 4 bluebird nest boxes. Here's one in the large Galapagos pen on the Mulberry Tree.



I checked the end of April and did have a clutch of eggs in it. Should be ready to fledge as well.