The past month has flown by and a fair bit of time has been taken up with the Barn Owl Survey. The trail cams seem to be behaving better which is a relief. Having persuaded the Ornithological Section to buy three, I was worried that they were not going to deliver the evidence of breeding that we need.

This week they were able to give confirmation of successful breeding from another two sites. This brings the total of confirmed breeding sites for the year to eleven, and I’m hopeful that another half dozen or so will be added to the list. So far, the trail cams have returned footage from five sites, two of which do not appear to have owls this year.

The image at the top shows a female that was ringed last month. She has a sister and both were in very good condition. It promises to be a good year for Barn Owls. I hope many of this year’s owlets will be making excursions out of the box (branching) on to nearby branches so they don’t overheat with the current high temperatures.

In some parts of the UK, Barn Owls can be seen out hunting from late afternoon. Many of our owls are truly nocturnal. The footage below is unusual as it was taken during daylight hours. It’s good to see an adult and a chick in the same clip.

The following one, from a different site, shows an owlet that is just flying. It has left the box for a nearby branch. Head nodding is typical behaviour in a youngster as it develops a sense of distance.

The hissing sound is the chick’s begging call. The Barn Owl Survey team would be very interested to know of any locations where people have heard this at night, what3words is a brilliant app for pinpointing a location. You can contact us via email at barnowlsurvey2020@gmail.com

We’re pleased with the way the field work is progressing this summer, following two years of lockdown, but we’re sure there are more owls out there that we don’t know about, especially in the St. Martin’s area. We would love to hear about any sightings or, better still, breeding sites that we don’t know about. They are treated in the strictest confidence.

Ringing Barn Owls needs a special licence. Chris Mourant is currentlly our only active ringer in Guernsey with such a licence. We ring as many chicks as possible. Where they are on private land, the decision is made by the land owner. Ringing gives each bird a unique number and an address, so that when a ring is recovered, usually from a dead or injured bird, we know its sex, its age and where it originated. All this information will help inform policy if and when Guernsey improves its legislation for protecting our wildlilfe and the habitats they need.

Barn Owls need rough grassland where they hunt for voles and other rodents. Let’s hope that these beautiful birds have a future in Guernsey where land is coming under increasing pressure to be developed or managed.

Many gulls around Guernsey have coloured plastic rings. Most were ringed a few years ago at Chouet where hundreds of gulls congregated around the refuse tip. Each bird has its own unique code and when a sighting is reported at http://birdrings.digimap.gg/?fbclid=IwAR1Hu8d44Y6EX0CoZynUeAviKoNdyTIjLSl-AA7lDzYd6GN5MIRGtQ1jkVk previous sightings of the individual are shown. I photographed the Herring Gull in the main picture this morning, sitting on top of buildings on the Cambridge Berth. It looks as though it could be on some kind of CCTV – I rather like the fact that it has its own little windscreen wiper!

This gull was ringed by Paul Veron at Chouet on 21st May 2014. It has been reported ten times sine then, every time at St Peter Port Harbour, so it is a sedentary bird.

A Great Black-backed Gull was recorded at Lihou Island yesterday, but back in December 2021, it was seen at Looe Island in Cornwall. It was ringed on Jethou in 2014 and has also been seen on the Lizard in Cornwall, St Austell in Cornwall and at Dawlish Warren in Devon. It has also been over to St Ouen’s in Jersey.

Many cameras will now pick up the ring codes and anyone can register on the website to enter a sighting and contribute to the scheme. Paul Veron has done a huge amount of work in setting up the scheme and in doing a lot of the ringing. It has given important insights into gull movements. A few gull chicks continue to be ringed, but not to the extent of several years ago when a team of ringers undertook cannon netting at Chouet.

To see more about cannon netting in Guernsey, there is a Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZuNpRuvgsE

Each species has its own coloured ring: Herring Gulls are white, Lesser Black-backed Gulls have blue rings and Great Black-backed Gulls have yellow ones.

Guernsey’s Barn Owl Survey has been a bumpy ride so far. The first two years were sabotaged by covid. We were able to do the desk work but couldn’t get out into the field. This spring, we were all set to go, after La Société’s Bird Section bought three trail cams. They have been put in a smart kit box with extra batteries and memory card, programmed and ready to go. The first one went up earlier in the month for four days.

The owner has heard Barn Owls, but wanted to know if they were using this box. It is well placed (one of vic Froome’s) high up in a tree with the entrance clearly visible and it looks out over a grassy valley. Perfect. There are several boxes on the property and Barn Owls have been present for quite a few years. We put up the recorder on a handy tree stake, but results were very mixed. (I discounted the first week when the swaying branches of the tree set the camera off and soon filled the memory card.)

At the second attempt, the branches were tied back and the camera was set to run from sunset to sunrise. Results? One recording showed a crow flying past and there were recordings set off by trees swaying in the wind behind the box. One day nothing was recorded (What????) and on other days there were ‘blank’ recordings – total darkness. This is well beyond my technical knowledge, but I am trying to work out if it’s the camera or the memory card. Field work is not always straightforward – ask Liz Sweet and the kleptomaniac vole! I thought after being up for a couple of nights we would have some great footage of Barn Owls. We are quite a way from that happening.

At present, the hedgehog in my garden is stealing the limelight. He has four trail cams recording his nightly visits, showing him eating, drinking and seeing off another hog. He has shared his appearances with a wood mouse. So far, I am no closer to solving the problem although I think it may be to do with the infra-red switch or the memory card formatting. Please note that the trail cams are the same model as my own because ‘I know it’s reliable and I know how to set it up!’ Famous last words.

I trust that this will be resolved and the trail cams will be out and about round the island soon and we get footage of some of our Barn Owls. to find out more about the survey, Liz Sweet has created some infographics at https://www.biologicalrecordscentre.gov.gg/our-projects/barn-owl/

There is also a page on La Societe’s website: https://societe.org.gg/wp/guernsey-barn-owl-survey/

The beautiful featured image at the top is by Dave Carré, who will be giving an illustrated talk at La Societe’s AGM later this year.