Barn Owl

Barn Owl, adult male

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Barn Owl, female and nestlings

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1. Description
2. Sound
3. Conservation Status
4. Other Names
5. Cool Facts
6. Full detailed species account

The Barn Owl is one of the most widely distributed birds in the world, found on all continents except Antarctica, and on many oceanic islands as well. It has been introduced by people to some of the few places it did not already occur, namely Hawaii, the Seychelles Islands, and Lord Howe Island.

Description

• Medium-sized owl.
• White or mostly white underside.
• Heart-shaped, white face.
• Back tawny, marked with black and white spots.
• Long legs.
• Eyes dark.
• Round head without ear tufts.

• Size: 32-40 cm (13-16 in)
• Wingspan: 100-125 cm (39-49 in)
• Weight: 400-700 g (14.12-24.71 ounces)

Sex Differences

Sexes similar in plumage, but females are larger, darker, and more spotted below.

Sound

Call is a drawn-out, hissing scream.

Conservation Status

Common, but local in some parts of its range. Populations in Midwest and inland East dropped dramatically during 1970-2000. Listed as Endangered in some states. Nest box programs have helped increase populations in some areas.

Other Names

effraie (French)
Lechuza de campanario (Spanish)

Cool Facts

• Watch what happens inside a Barn Owl nest, through the help of a Nest Box Cam provided by The Birdhouse Network at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

• The female Barn Owl tends to be more spotted on the breast than the male. These spots may act as a stimulus to the male, indicating the quality of the female. If a female's spots were experimentally removed, her mate fed their nestlings at a lower rate than if the spots were left alone.

• Up to 46 different races of the Barn Owl have been described worldwide. The North American form is the largest, weighing more than twice as much as the smallest race from the Galapagos Islands.

• The Barn Owl is one of the few bird species with the female showier than the male. The female has a more reddish chest that is more heavily spotted. The spots may signal to a potential mate the quality of the female. Heavily spotted females get fewer parasitic flies and may be more resistant to parasites and diseases.

• The Barn Owl has excellent low-light vision, and can easily find prey at night by sight. But its ability to locate prey by sound alone is the best of any animal that has ever been tested. It can catch mice in complete darkness in the lab, or hidden by vegetation or snow out in the real world.

Sources used to construct this page:

1. Marti, C. D. 1992. Barn Owl (Tyto alba). In The Birds of North America, No. 1 (A. Poole, P. Stettenheim, and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.
2. Roulin, A. 1999. Nonrandom pairing by male barn owls (Tyto alba) with respect to a female plumage trait. Behavioral Ecology 10: 688-695. 
3. Roulin , A., C. Riols , C. Dijkstra, and A.-L. Ducrest. 2001. Female plumage spottiness signals parasite resistance in the barn owl (Tyto alba). Behavioral Ecology 12: 103-110.