Another Good Year for Barn Owls

The latest status report on Barn Owls from The Barn Owl Trust – State of the UK Barn Owl Population 2023 – indicates that Barn Owls had a good year for breeding in 2023. The report notes that it wasn’t as good as 2022, but was still a positive year.

“A total of 1,559 active Barn Owl nest sites were reported by independent groups and individuals from around the UK, which corresponds to a 22% increase in nesting occupancy from the average. Unfortunately, this increase was not supported by a significant increase in mean brood size, which instead remained very close to average.

The higher number of birds nesting was likely because of the dry, non-harsh winter we had in 2022/2023. However, this winter period was then followed by very variable weather across the breeding period, which likely contributed to the unexceptional brood sizes observed and the large regional differences seen in Barn Owl breeding success across the UK.”