Numerous Barn Owl sighting have taken place at Warren Farm.
With heart-shaped face, buff back and wings and pure white underparts, the barn owl is a distinctive and much-loved countryside bird. Widely distributed across the UK, and indeed the world, this bird has suffered declines through the 20th century and is thought to have been adversely affected by organochlorine pesticides such as DDT in the 1950s and ’60s.
Nocturnal birds like the barn owl are poorly monitored by the Breeding Bird Survey and, subject to this caveat, numbers may have increased between 1995-2008.
Barn owls are a Schedule 1 and 9 species – taking breathtaking flight on Warren Farm.
What they eat:
Mice, voles, shrews and some larger mammals and small birds. Warren Farm provides the vital habitat for these and represents an important hunting ground for the resident Barn Owls. Without a hunting ground, producing their daily nourishment, the owl boxes will become empty, and Barn Owls will not be seen over Warren Farm.
Read more at https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/barn-owl/#qDSIrSciF8x7vB6R.99
.Barn Owl hunting over Warren Farm at night taken with high performance lens. By Nigel Hewley
Establishing the wild life on Warren Farm is vital to keep the records for the future generations, it is also beautiful up there, and near some jolly good food at The Fox Pub, Green Lane, Hanwell, W7 just over lock 97 on the Canal.
I saw a Barn owl sweep down from the tree and glide across Warren Farm at dusk the other night, it seemed to be scouring the ground in search of a field mouse for dinner no doubt. Where are they nesting? Magnificat bird! How lucky was I?
Yes it startled a few of us too on the Bat survey on Friday, magnificent!
And don’t forget there are little Owls, apparently London’s oldest recorded owls live there too. Reported as nesting on 3 eggs if I remember the picture correctly. Glad to see you have used them as your logo, they are adorable.
There are some amazing pictures of the Barn Owls on Warren Farm on Ealing wildlife’s facebook page. Definitely worth a visit to catch sight of one of them, dusk is the best time. I went on one of their dawn chorus 5am walks and we lost count of the number of different varieties of birds up there right now. The Skylarks are so unique not only in the way they sing, but their flying and pounding death drops to their nests are extraordinary.
A place to be treasured, would be worth speaking to Julian Bell to see if we can’t make Warren Farm a destination wildlife sanctury like the have in East London. Walthamstow Wetlands saw over 250,000 human visitors in its first year, creating huge revenue bringing visitors and business to the local area. So let’s do that here?