THE GOOD LIFE
Ideas and advice for would-be smallholders in the country and the city
AUTHOR AND JOURNALIST Sally Coulthard
Barn owls and farmland go hand in hand. Or at least, they did. These birds are such efficient mousers that farmers used to encourage them to nest in their grain barns. The relationship between farmer and owl was one of mutual benefit – the farmer’s cereal grains were protected from vermin, while the owl had somewhere to nest and could also hunt indoors when the weather was bad. January is particularly hard for barn owls – as winter starts to bite, small animals such as field voles and common shrews become trickier to find. In the past, grain barns would have bridged the gap, providing a source of shelter and food.
Another reason that barn owls struggle to find food is because their habitat is disappearing. They prefer permanent rough grassland – areas of long, tussocky grass that aren’t heavily grazed or regularly mown. This is the perfect nesting environment for the rodents that barn owls like to hunt. Yet as agricultural land becomes more intensively farmed,
Sally and her family share their plot with sheep, horses, chickens and the odd peacock. Maintaining a vegetable garden, orchards, fields and a wild pond, Sally has perfected the art of smallholding on a budget (sallycoulthard.co.uk)
fewer of these wild places remain. Add to this factors such as mortality from road traffic and an unpredictable climate and it’s clear that barn owls need our protection.
There are, however, plenty of measures to take that can help, some of which we’ve been trying out on the smallholding. You can create strips, or field margins, or leave an entire area to become rough grassland. The aim is to let the grass grow, collapse and create a ‘litter layer’ in the first year (litter is the dead grass you see when you part green, living grass with your hands). The next year’s new grass will then grow through this layer. Ideally, you want a litter layer at least 7cm deep so that voles, mice and shrews will nest there. Once they’re established, grassy areas should be topped to at least 13cm and then strimmed (watching out for hibernating hedgehogs) or lightly grazed every two years.
If you have grassland but no nesting sites, you can buy or make a nesting box – make sure you put the box in the right place, with the correct orientation, and away from roads and overhead cables. For advice on this, get in touch with The Barn Owl Trust (barnowltrust.org.uk). An increasing number of new-builds and conversions are also incorporating barn owl nest spaces – The Royal Institute of British Architects (architecture.com) offers a guide called Designing for Biodiversity: A Technical Guide for New and Existing Buildings. Get it right and the results can be dramatic – about 75 per cent of the UK’S barn owls now nest in man-made boxes*.
Other measures include doing without rat poison (barn owls often die from ingesting poisoned prey), turning off exterior lights at night (these can interfere with barn owls’ hunting patterns) and resisting the urge to fell large, old or hollowed-out trees (which barn owls use to nest). With a little help, the relationship that once existed between barn owl and barn owner can fly once again.
About 75 per cent of the UK’S barn owls now nest in man-made boxes