The latest news and events from the Barn Owl Trust.
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High Speed 2 – the Barn Owl Trust’s response
December 2013 The Government plans to build a high speed rail line known as High Speed 2 (HS2) linking a number of the UK’s major cities. Due to concerns over its impact on Barn Owls and the local environment, we submitted comments on the ecological content of the HS2 Draft Environmental Statement (ES) and associated […]
Lucky to be Alive
September 2013 This young Barn Owl was the subject of a call to our Live Owl Emergency line on Friday. Recently fledged, she’d managed to get her legs tangled in baler twine and then get hooked onto barbed wire on an electricity pole only a short distance from the nest. Glenda Calvert from Pry House […]
Catastrophic year for Britain’s Barn Owls
August 2013 “The worst Barn Owl breeding season for over thirty years” is how 2013 is being described by conservationists throughout the UK and beyond. Voted Britain’s most popular farmland bird, this icon of the countryside is now in very serious trouble. A run of extreme weather events since 2009 has devastated not only people […]
SGARs (Rat Poison) and Barn Owls
June 2013 SGARs (Rat Poison) and Barn Owls – Let’s get the information right The Barn Owl Trust campaigns for better information about the effect of Rodenticides on wildlife. At least 76% of farms in the UK use Second Generation Anti-coagulant Rodenticides (SGARs). The Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme shows that a shocking 91% of Barn […]
Barn Owl Survey – report UK Barn Owls on-line
You can now report your Barn Owl sites and sightings (both dead and alive) anywhere in the UK on-line. www.barnowlsurvey.org.uk is a project of the Barn Owl Trust launched on 1st May 2013. With an Identification Guide to check that the bird or the signs you saw really were Barn Owl, you can report where, […]
Two Moors – one girl – her diary
Lynmouth to Wembury -117 miles. In April 2013 Hannah Boscence walked 117 miles to raise funds for the Trust, this is her eight day diary. Hannah was a member of the Conservation Team between January 2012 and June 2014. Easter Sunday fell on the 31st of March this year. Over the years my excitement about […]
Celebrating 25 years as a registered charity
January 2013 It’s almost impossible to believe that this year the Trust will be 25 years old! Please help to support our work and to celebrate our 25th birthday by promoting the Trust, recruiting new Friends or holding a fund-raising event. A coffee morning for your friends, a car boot sale, a draw, plant stall, […]
Wildlife Diary 2012
December 2012 On the 12th, 6 Plymouth University students spent the morning searching for Brown Hairstreak eggs on the new Blackthorn growth along our roadside perimeter. This is apparently by far the best way of surveying for this rather retiring species, as adults either spend most of their time at rest, or high up in […]
Uncovered: The killing of Britain’s Barn Owls
The first-ever Barn Owl Conservation Handbook, exposes the issues facing Britain’s Barn Owls and is a highly critical wake-up call for the Highways Agency, the rodenticide manufacturers and the Health and Safety Executives of Chemicals Regulation Directorate. Barn Owls are Britain’s most popular farmland bird but they have declined by at least 70% and there […]
Weather Woe for Owls – June 2012
After a great start to the breeding season here in the South West our hopes for a bumper Barn Owl year have been knocked back yet again thanks to our unpredictable British weather. It has been 15 years since we’ve had a really good year for the birds in this part of the country (1997) […]