Adopt A Bird spotlight: Dawn (American Barn Owl)

Dawn's Story

Species: Barn Owl
Hatched: 2001

Dawn, a female barn owl, was hatched at the World Bird Sanctuary's breeding facility. She was carefully raised and trained by our handlers to be one of our education birds. She has worked at our Busch Gardens Tampa programs, and is currently traveling with our Education Department staff to teach audiences about the role Barn Owls play in the environment.

Dawn is a real trouper. Every year she amazes thousands of audience members by demonstrating the barn owl's silent flight. Your adoption fee will help to keep Dawn traveling with her message of conservation, particularly for those children who otherwise would never have the opportunity to see this beautiful creature of the night.

To adopt Dawn, simply click our donation button, make a donation of $100 and specify in your payment notes: Adopt-a-bird: DAWN. Also include your name, phone number, and mailing address so that we can send you your adoption materials!

Every donation helps to feed, house, and provide medical care for the bird of your choice! Adopt-A-Bird Parents Receive:

• *A personal visit with the bird you adopt!!!!! Call 636-861-3225 to set up a time for
• your personal visit.
• * Certificate of Adoption
• * Color photo of the bird you've adopted
• * Sponsorship Card
• * One year's subscription to Mews News (our quarterly newsletter)
• * Life History and Natural History of the bird
• * 10% Discount off WBS merchandise
• * Invitation to Sponsors-only events like Camera Day
• * Discounts on WBS Special Events
• * WBS Decal

Natural History

common barn owl
Tyto alba

Description: medium sized owl; long, sparsely feathered legs; rounded head without ear tufts; heart shaped facial disk has white feathers surrounded with a brownish edge; beak off white, long, and compressed; rounded wings and a short tail; back tawny brown, marked with black and white spots; underside grayish white with brown spots; one of the few owls with completely dark eyes; feet yellowish-white to grayish-brown; downy feathers and fringed wing feathers give silent flight; asymmetrical ear location—one ear higher on one side of the head than the other

Sex: both sexes similar in size and color; females usually larger, heavier, darker in color than males; females and juveniles generally more densely spotted; sexually mature at 1 year; mate for life

Age: high mortality in the first year; average age in the wild is 2 years; few adults live beyond 3-4 years; oldest recorded wild barn owl in North America was 11 years, 6 months; captive birds have a much longer lifespan

Length: 14-20” Wingspan: 3.5’ Weight: 8-21 oz.

Habitat: prefers open land, prairies, grasslands and agricultural area for hunting; nest in natural hollows in trees, cliffs, caves, nestboxes, barns and other structures

Status: legal status across the entire US as a whole is “Not Endangered”; however, legal status in many states, including Missouri, is “Endangered”; causes of mortality are: loss of nesting sites, grasslands and pastures; great horned owl predation; vehicle collisions; shooting; poisons used to kill rodents which the owls eat; other factors which affect the rodent population

Range: every continent except Antarctica

Behavior: breeding season March through October; mating and courtship involve much chasing and screaming; nest is a scrape lined with pellets and debris; not extremely territorial; may nest within ½ mile of other pairs; usually 4-6 solid white eggs, sometimes more; one egg laid every 2-3 days, but incubating starts immediately hence there may be as much as two to three weeks difference in age of chicks in same brood; generally 3-4 young survive; incubation period 29-45 days; young fledge at 7-10 weeks, but do not leave the area until 3-5 months old; may lay a second clutch of eggs when young start to leave the area; usually hunt from a perch; also known to fly low over open fields in a quartering flight pattern to locate small rodents in their runs

Diet: majority of prey is small rodents , but will also hunt birds, fish, reptiles and insects

Vocalization: does not hoot; communicates with grunts, raspy hisses and drawn out hissing screams; male’s courtship call is a shrill repetitive twittering; adults returning to a nest give a low, frog-like croak; when disturbed at the roost or nest it makes hissing and rasping noises along with snapping sounds known as bill snapping

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT BARN OWLS

√ A barn owl family (5-7 birds) can consume 25,000 rodents a year; one pair may take as many as 1,000 mice during the nesting season alone to feed their brood

√ 200 pellets from a pair of barn owls roosting above the Smithsonian Institute Building contained 444 skulls, including 225 meadow mice, 179 house mice, 20 rats, and 20 shrews—all caught in the city

√ Can catch prey by hearing alone in total darkness due to asymmetrical location of the ears which allows them to triangulate sound

√ Because barn owls tend to live in damp areas, a fungus grows on their feathers, giving them a phosphorescent glow at night—hence the often used name “ghost owl”

√ Common nicknames: ghost owl, monkey faced owl, white owl, night owl, Sweetheart Owl, church owl,

√ Throughout history, barn owls have been associated with omens, witchcraft, and death; they were used as symbols, in myths and as part of superstitious potions

√ The female’s breast spots are believed to be a stimulus to the male, indicating the quality of the female. When a female’s spots were experimentally removed, the male fed the nestlings at a lower rate than if the spots were left alone.