Barn Owl Monitoring & Sightings – A Season of Surprises

Each year brings its own rhythm to the world of Barn Owl monitoring, and 2025 is shaping up to be a year of quiet resilience. While we haven’t seen as many broods as we might hope for, what we are witnessing is a powerful reminder of how finely tuned these remarkable birds are to the natural world around them.

The unusually dry spring and early summer have meant that small mammal numbers are down, making hunting more difficult for our owls. For a female Barn Owl to lay a clutch of eggs, she needs to be in peak condition—and if she isn’t getting enough food, she simply won’t breed. In some cases, we’ve even seen evidence of owls abandoning eggs, an instinctive and heartbreaking response to the pressure of food scarcity.

But Barn Owls are survivors. They’ve evolved to weather these lean periods, and it’s entirely possible that we may still see late broods emerging if conditions improve in the coming weeks. Nature has a way of surprising us.

In the meantime, monitoring teams continue to visit boxes and track sightings, recording what we find and learning from every encounter. If you have a box that hasn’t been visited by a licensed monitor this year, or if you’ve seen Barn Owls in your area, we’d love to hear from you. Every sighting helps build a clearer picture of how our owls are faring.

Let’s stay hopeful—there’s still time for this season to take flight.

Contact us to report a sighting or arrange a box check.

barnowls@suffolkbirdgroup.org

Tel: 07708 141 276