The Barn owl is among the most attractive of all owls. Its beautiful heart-shaped face and light-coloured plumage, typically a mix of tan, grey, and white, provide effective camouflage in various habitats.

If you drive along a country lane at night and see an almost white, large bird flying low to the ground in your headlights, it’s likely a barn owl. Few other birds look so white at night when their undercarriage is illuminated by light.

The barn owl’s scientific name is Tyto Alba*, which describes the owl well….

..the literal translation is “White owl.” Tyto is an ancient Greek name for an Owl, and Alba means White in Latin.

Watching a barn owl fly over open fields hunting for prey is mesmerising. They fly in total silence using feathers designed to make as little noise as possible.  Barn Owl feathers have a leading edge shaped like a comb and a trailing edge with a fringe, which funnels air smoothly over the wing, reducing noise, helping with its silent flight. The Barn Owl’s huge wings, relative to its body size, also provide more lift and allow it to fly slowly, at as little as two miles per hour. Gentle, silent wing movements power the low-level flight as they look for voles, their favourite snack. The barn owl’s concave-shaped face helps direct sound towards their keenly sensitive ears. This exceptional hearing allows them to locate prey accurately. When they see a vole or small mammal in the grasses, they silently dive bomb the prey with their talons outstretched, ready to grab and kill it. A quick squeeze of the mammal’s neck in the powerful beak will seal its fate if it’s not already dead.

Physical attributes of a barn owl

Barn Owls are medium-sized birds, typically standing just over a foot tall, but they can look smaller when relaxed and roosting as they sink lower into their frame, keeping warm to sleep and relax. Like most owls and birds of prey, female barn owls are larger than males. The Barn owl has a large wingspan of around 30-40 inches with specialised feathers which help it glide silently when hunting.

It’s not always easy to tell male and female barn owls apart. Females tend to be bigger, but it’s hard to judge their size unless they are correctly lined up and standing beside each other. The male barn owls tend to be slightly lighter in colour than the females. Good signs to help identify a female barn owl are a buff coloured throat area and an abundance of spots or flecks on her chest area. Guide to working out the sex of a barn owl.

Barn Owls are nocturnal and like to roost in man-made structures.

The Barn owl is a nocturnal bird. It will generally roost out of sight during the day, so it is less common to see one during daylight hours. They will roost in trees, but they much prefer the safety and security of a nest box, an old building such as a barn or at the very least something high off the ground in a location that gives them shelter, privacy and protection, for example, a covered ledge of an old building.

Barn owls always like to roost and nest in positions overlooking rough grassland so they can see the area they will hunt in. Being wise owls, they seek the entrances to their nest to be sheltered from the prevailing winds and weather. So nest openings that face northeast are perfect for the barn owl.

If you’re considering putting up your own Barn Owl nest box and seeking guidance on the best location to put up a barn owl nest box, the entrance must be clearly visible to the barn owls to enter without obstructions.  Barn Owls will tolerate shared spaces with humans, but secluded, rough grasslands are what the barn owl likes to hunt over, and this is the kind of area most suited to a barn owl nest box.. Mowed gardens would not suit or appeal to a barn owl. 

Barn Owl Lifespan

The lifespan of a Barn Owl can vary significantly based on factors such as food availability and environmental threats. Barn Owls typically have a relatively short lifespan in the wild, often living only between 3 and 5 years. However, some individuals can live much longer under favourable conditions. This shorter life expectancy of the barn owls is attributed to various risks, including predation, accidents, and food scarcity.

When the young owlets finally fledge the nest, like many species that enter the big wild world of Mother Nature, the odds of survival are stacked against them. Less than ½ of all the Barn Owls that fledge will survive the first year in the real world. It’s estimated that a staggering 70% will die in the first year. Barn Owls that survive that challenging first year in the wild will live to an average age of around 4 years. With some living shorter lives and some longer lives. The lifespan of a Barn Owl can vary significantly based on factors such as food availability and environmental threats. The oldest recorded barn owl living in the wild is 17 years, verified by BTO ringing data.

When food availability and environmental threats are removed, such as captive birds in sanctuaries, barn owls can live significantly longer, with an average life span of 20 to 25 years. The oldest Barn Owl at The Barn Owl Centre (Gloucestershire)  lived to 34 years of age, as confirmed by old DEFRA leg ring paperwork.

Barn Owls hunt on the wing.

Barn owls are nocturnal hunters and are most active at night. However, you will see them at dusk when the light begins to fade, as they come out looking for prey.  Barn Owls hunt primarily on the wing, meaning they will glide silently over rough grassland at around 1-3m high, looking for food in the form of small mammals such as voles.  Between long flights zig-zagging across the grassland with almost sat nav precision looking for prey, the Barn owl will occasionally perch on a high wall or tree branch, looking for movement in the grass. When they see movement, they will move their head from side to side, a technique they use to judge the distance to their prey. If the prey is within striking distance, the barn owl will silently take flight and swoop to catch its food.

Barn Owls’ favourite food is the field vole.

The barn owl’s primary diet consists of small mammals, including rodents such as mice and voles. It uses its sharp talons and powerful beak to capture and consume prey. The barn owl usually consumes its prey whole, swallowing the mice and voles head-first until the tail is finally consumed.  The head-first approach is the most efficient way of swallowing a vole whole, and the barn owl has learned and adapted that as a standard eating practice. Head first means the vole’s fur is aligned in the correct direction so it can glide down its throat smoothly. Similarly, the vole’s legs will naturally fold backwards, making swallowing the vole easier without getting stuck. The barn owl uses a head rocking movement and contractions in its throat to eat its prey quickly and efficiently. 

Swallowing the prey whole means the barn owl consumes fur and bones it can’t digest, so it regurgitates this waste food as a pellet, which it expels from its throat the next day after consumption. The pellet is formed in a special organ that extends the owl’s stomach, called a “gizzard”.  When the pellet is formed and compacted in the gizzard, the barn owl uses the same rhythmic throat contraction and head and body movements to expel the pellet in a reversed manner to swallowing the prey.

Barn Owls’ regurgitated pellets are used to make nests due to the fur content!

The barn owl’s regurgitated pellets near its roosting sites contain the indigestible parts of its meals, providing valuable insights into its diet and the local ecosystem where it hunts. The sighting of pellets outside can indicate where a barn owl frequently roosts. The pellets are smooth, quite dry, oval-shaped, and black in colour, with flecks of white and grey due to small bones and fur. They are around 5cm long and 3cm in diameter.

When building a nest, the regurgitated pellets the barn owl produces are used as part of its bedding. Before the female lays eggs, she will often be seen moving the pellets around, breaking them into smaller sections, and scattering them around the nest bottom with her talons. The pellets are soft and insulating due to their fur content, making them great nest bedding.

Barn Owls have incredible night Vision. 

The Barn Owl’s incredible low-light vision arises from its eye shape and ultra-sensitive light receptors. Unlike a human’s eye, which is circular, the Barn Owl’s eye is cone-shaped. This distinctive shape enables it to function like a telephoto lens, providing excellent long-distance vision, particularly in low-light conditions. The eye shape gives the Barn Owl a characteristic that can often be observed when you see it looking intently at something. Because the Barn Owl’s eye is conical and extends backwards into its conical eye socket, which is not ball-shaped, the owl cannot rotate its eyes and must move its head to look at different objects. Consequently, you will often see a Barn Owl moving its head frequently to compensate for the shape of its eyes. The side-to-side movement of the Barn Owl’s head also assists it in judging the distance to its prey, allowing it to ascertain the timing for hunting and catching. The Barn Owl’s large, forward-facing eyes feature extra-large pupils, a retina densely packed with light-sensitive cells (rods), and a reflective layer called the tapetum lucidum behind the retina to provide remarkably sharp vision in low light.

Barn owls’ incredible low-light vision and acute hearing enable them to hunt in complete darkness, so they hunt and usually get all their food at night. If bad weather interrupts their night-time hunting, such as torrential rain or snow-covered terrain, so they can’t see their prey, the barn owl may hunt during the day out of hunger. 

Barn Owls are monogamous…usually! 

Barn owls are generally known for their monogamous relationships, forming long-term bonds with their mates. However, I have witnessed myself where a new female barn owl in a territory will force a bonded female out of the territory to secure her “man owl”. As barn owls tend to stay in a territory they know for security and proven hunting grounds, the male owl can bond with the new female.

Barn owl courtship involves mutual preening and vocalisations called chittering. They will often be seen grooming each other and roosting side by side. In the bonding process between male and female barn owls, the female will frequently do most of the grooming and preening of the “henpecked” male. This slight imbalance of the preening is one early visual way of helping identify the female and male barn owl apart. 

Barn owls like to nest in barns but often nest in other man-made structures, like rural abandoned buildings. They will nest in tree hollows, but like a large nest, so will generally look for a suitable building or man-made nest box.

The Male Barn Owl can be the sole food provider for over 2 months.

When the female barn owl lays her eggs, the male barn owl provides food and brings the female small mammals such as voles to eat as she incubates and protects the egg, even before the eggs have been laid, the male barn owl may capture and offer the female a vole or a mouse as part of the bonding process and show her he is a good provider. The additional food that the male barn owl brings the female during the breeding season allows the female to do less work and put on a small amount of weight in preparation to sit and incubate the eggs for typically 30 days.  Each time the male barn owl brings the female food, and as the breeding season gets going in earnest, the male will begin to be seen mounting the female, and this will continue right through the breeding process until the owlets fledge the nest. 

The female will typically lay 4-6 eggs, but not all the eggs may hatch and not all the ones that hatch may survive for various reasons. The female barn owl will instinctively know when eggs are forming inside her and getting ready to lay. She will sit and squat in the nest multiple times over days or a week, until finally she will produce the first egg. Unlike many other birds that don’t sit and incubate the eggs until all are laid, the Barn owl will incubate them as soon as they are laid. This means the eggs will hatch in the order that they are laid. The Barn owl will lay an egg every 2-3 days, and this means that they will hatch at similar intervals. 

The incubation period of the barn owl egg is around 30 days.

As soon as the first egg is laid, the male barn owl is responsible for hunting and providing all the food for the female. He is often seen throughout the night catching voles and leaving them for the female to eat immediately or save one or two for the next day. As the barn owls get their water intake through food, fresh, juicy rodents are required frequently for the female. With the female sitting on the eggs for a month and the owlets being in the nest for over 8 weeks, the male barn owl can be the sole food provider for over 2 months!

After around 30 days, the first owlet should be getting ready to hatch if the egg is viable. Out of 4 eggs, typically only three may hatch. The encased owlet will use a special adaptation to its immature beak to break through the inner sack of the egg as part of the hatching process. This is then followed by the tiny owlet doing the same to the egg’s outer shell, referred to as pipping. The female owl sitting on the eggs will feel and sense the beginning of the hatching process and will often help the owlet by gently removing any cracked parts of the eggs to help the owlet out.

When the owlet first appears, it is almost entirely bald, but within 24 hours, white downy fur will cover the delicate bird. Using a small mammal left by the male owl, the female will begin tearing small food strips to feed the newly hatched owlet. Being the first to hatch and be fed will allow it to put on bulk and size, and give it the maximum chance of survival amongst its siblings, yet to hatch.

Barn Owl Eggs will hatch around every 2-3 days, the same interval as when they were laid.

Every 2-3 days, if the eggs are viable, another will hatch.  The female barn owl will feed and keep them warm, whilst the male barn owl hunts and provides all the food for both parents and the owlets. During the daytime, the male owl will often roost separately from the nest, but in an area where it can see or be close to the nest. If you make a barn owl nest box with an upper roosting ledge, you are likelier to see the male roost on the upper ledge with the female in the nest bottom with the owlets. 

With so much hunting to do by the male barn owl, if prey is elusive, it may also hunt during the day for extra food to feed the female owl, which is confined to sitting on the eggs to incubate them. Once hatched, she continues this nest sitting, keeping the owlets warm and also feeding them bits of the voles delivered to her by the male barn owl.

It can take as little as one week before a hatched owlet can swallow a small rodent, though it will often be seen trying. After around 3 weeks, the female and male barn owls will be feeding the owlets whole mice and shrews. The most fed owlets out of the brood will always be the ones most likely to grow and fledge the nest.

The Owlets will swallow a whole mouse often in their second week of life!

The owlet’s downy fur thickens as it grows, keeping it warmer and less reliant on the mother’s incubation. However, in cold Springs and Summers, the mother must keep the owlets warm to survive, and she will rarely leave the nest. 

After around 4 weeks, the owlet’s down is thick, white and fluffy; over the next few weeks, it slowly transforms into feathers. At 6 weeks the young owlets will be seen flapping their wings a lot, they do this for three main reasons, 1 – to assist in removing the remaining down which ends up being everywhere in the nest bottom, 2- for practising flying but the feathers are not yet formed enough for the owlet to take off or fly and 3- to get attention and show dominance to be fed as their hunger demands more food for them to grow. Over the next few weeks, the wing flapping leads to jumping and the jumping to small hops and short, messy flights.

After 8 weeks, the young owlets start looking more like their parents as they gradually lose the fluffy downy feathers. They will frequently sit on a ledge outside the nest box at night, waiting for food to be delivered straight from the parents’ talons into theirs to consume.

Inside the nest, they will be seen jumping on imaginary prey in preparation for their impending hunt for food. From around 10 weeks, the young owlets are ready to fledge the nest. Some will stay, and some will go as they venture further afield, exploring the world looking for their own place to roost. 

Next season, these young owls will start the whole breeding process again, and even though they will have never done it before, their instincts will kick in, and the male and female will assume their roles as Mother Nature intended. 

If you want information about Owls, please check out my other articles here on the Barn Owl Live website. Numerous articles have been written based on my observation of barn owls in my owl barn owl nest boxes. If you are looking for videos of barn owls and their behaviour, please check out my YouTube channel @BarnOwlLive, where you can find many videos on barn owls and other wildlife. If you’re trying to determine the sex of a barn owl from a photograph you have taken, check out my article on How to Tell if a Barn Owl is Male or Female.

If you want to look at some of my latest wildlife pictures, why not follow me on my Instagram account as I post my most recent wildlife photos there, often with tips on how to get them. The Instagram account for wildlife photography is PeakyWildlife