A male Barn Owl was found dead along the Tralee Bypass on 1st September, the 10th to be reported there since the Bypass opened in August 2013 (see previous posts).
BirdWatch Ireland have just completed a year-long survey of the Bypass with a view to offering mitigation measures along the 13.5km route to prevent, or lessen, the risk of future casualties along the route, and hopefully to introduce such measures into all future road projects in Ireland. The NRA have been working in close cooperation with BWI on the subject of Barn Owl road casualties and we hope to announce a major initiative on this in the near future.
The BirdWatch Ireland Barn Owl Project, dating back to 2008, has amassed a huge body of knowledge about Barn Owl nest and roost sites all over Ireland, and particularly in Co. Kerry, one of the strongholds of the species. The discovery of this bird illustrates the value of such knowledge and reveals a detailed life history of our recent male casualty.
Although we don’t know where this individual was hatched, our first encounter with him was when it was trapped and ringed at a known nest site just outside Tralee. He was ringed on 22nd June 2013 and was already adult, probably 2 years old. The photo below shows this male on the left, with his partner.
Barn Owl male (left) and female, near Tralee, June 2013 (M.O'Clery)
The nest in 2013 was in a wall cavity in a derelict house, but they failed to breed that year, though both adults survived into winter, and in 2014 they moved nest to a high attic ledge in a different room in the same building.
Unfortunately, 2014 was a disastrous year for Barn Owls generally and they again failed to breed, as was the case at most other nest sites in Ireland. Although the pair were seen perched by the nest in early spring 2014, visits later that spring and summer revealed only a lone male screeching each evening in a vain attempt to attract a female, until the activity petered out in June. He was unpaired that summer, the female presumably having died around the previous March or April.
The male again in May 2015, now paired up and nesting again (M.O'Clery)
Better news in early 2015 by which time he had found a new partner, and again they moved nest, into a nest box in a nearby barn, which we installed in autumn 2014. He was photographed again, perched on a beam just beside the nest box, in April 2015 (above).
5 chicks were found inside the nest box in early June, the first brood of 5 recorded in Kerry at that time. Another visit in early August found that 3 chicks had survived and were just about ready to fledge.
The five chicks in June 2015 (M.O'Clery)
He was found dead on the hard shoulder of the Tralee Bypass on 1st September. A sad end indeed for this veteran male. Birds older than three are a rarity in Ireland, and it’s quite possible this bird had already survived many hunting trips along the Bypass up until now, as his nest is only a couple of km away.
His luck finally ran out.
His luck finally ran out.
