Britain’s barn owls under threat due to extreme weather

Britain’s barn owls under threat due to extreme weather

Cold, wet springs have led to worst breeding season in three decades, which has devastated the species’ UK population

by Caroline Davies

he barn owl, an icon of the countryside and one of Britain’s most popular farmland birds, has suffered a catastrophic fall in numbers after a series of cold and wet springs and is now in “very serious trouble", conservationists have warned.

The Barn Owl Trust said a run of extreme weather events since 2009 had devastated the species’ UK population and led to the worst barn owl breeding season for more than 30 years. Monitoring of sites has revealed where birds have managed to breed, and the average number of owlets at each site is just two, compared with the four or five needed for population recovery.

The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) recorded a 280% increase in reports of dead birds in March at the start of the breeding season. Many had starved.

David Ramsden, senior conservation officer at the Barn Owl Trust, said: “There has never been mortality on this scale before." Numbers were already low because of the bitterly cold winters and extremely wet summers the UK has experienced since 2009…