Fun things about Barn Owls

Two Silly Owlets

General Information of Barn Owls:

Barn Owls can be found on pretty much every continent around the world, the only exception being Antarctica. Usually Barn Owl adults live a solitary life until they meet up with their new mate. Once they find their mate, they mate for life. In the case of one of the pair dying, the other one will usually find another mate. Interestingly, they grow very attached to their companion and you can often observe them snuggling together at their nest site, as well as preening each other and rubbing cheeks together which is super sweet. Although they mate for the purpose of copulating, it is believed that they also mate to show affection for each other and enjoyment. Their average life span is between 1-5 years however, some have been observed to live as long as 15 years. 

Description:

Unique to the Barn Owl is the shape of their face. You can tell a Barn Owl from other species of owl by the white heart-shaped disk that surrounds their face. They are considered a medium-size bird of prey and are included in the raptor family. They are considered nocturnal because they are primarily active between the dusk and dawn hours when they are hunting. Their coloring ranges from light to darker shades of brown with a lighter chest. Like other owls, they have a sharp, hooked upper beak and very strong, sharp talons for grasping their prey. Also, like other owls, they are able to rotate their necks with great flexibility up to 270 degrees in order to turn their head. Unlike other animals, they need the ability to do this because their eyes are not round but are tubular (which are similar to a telescope) and this restricts their eye movement.

This is an interesting bit of information we got from one of our subscribers (Dagmar' Kunzel):

Do you know Barn Owls have facial expressions? They can move their face feathers. When they are asleep or relaxed, a dark center line will appear on their faces. When a warning call or something similar sounds, the center line disappears and the face turns white. 

Beautiful White Heart-Shaped Facial Disk

Disclaimer:

Although we have done quite a bit of research on Barn Owls so that we could give you some general information on this site, we are NOT PROFESSIONALS by any means and would never claim to be! We have shared the things that we have learned on this site strictly out of a love for these fascinating creatures and joy they bring us, but we are still learning all the time!

This information has come from our research of various sights and documentation that is available online about Barn Owls. It is not a complete source of information but does cover much of the general information that we found interesting. We’ve also added to this site some information that we have observed through watching our own nest box web cam.

If you should want more information then what is provided here, we found this source to be very helpful and where we were able to get quite a bit of our information: https://www.barnowltrust.org.uk/barn-owl-facts/barn-owl-nesting/