Stunning Barn Owl pictures:
Pictures of Barn Owls hunting at dawn and dusk – the best times to see them in the wild.
If you are lucky enough to see a wild Barn Owl in the UK, please record your sightings on our Barn Owl on-line survey website. Thank you.
Click on a photo to scroll through the gallery. Click on the black background or press esc to return to this page.
How do Barn Owls hunt in low light?
- A Barn Owl’s low-light vision is highly sensitive to the smallest movement of prey.
- A Barn Owl’s large eyes are twice as sensitive to light as human eyes.
- Their ears are very good at detecting and pin-pointing the tiny high frequency sounds made by small mammals as they move around in the long grass.
- Barn Owls can fly virtually silently, due to their soft feathers. This means that no sound interferes with listening for prey.
- Experiments have shown that Barn Owls can capture prey in total darkness by using just their hearing.
Barn Owl photography
About taking pictures of Barn Owls:
- Please minimise disturbance to the owls at all times.
- It’s particularly important to avoid flushing Barn Owls in wet or windy weather.
- When taking Barn Owl pictures, please note that it is illegal to disturb breeding Barn Owls and their nests.
- About camera, lighting and photography licences.
- Legal Protection for nesting Barn Owls.
Thank you to these wildlife photographers for their wonderful Barn Owl pictures:
- Kevin Keatley
- Melanie Lindenthal
- Nick Pitts
- Nick Sampford
- Phil McLean
- Russell Savory
- Simon Booth