Barn Owl road casualty, Co. Kerry, November 2013 (M.O'Clery).
Several Barn Owl road casualties have been reported over the past months, each a blow to a population which has been diminished by a record poor breeding season in 2013. The new bypass in Tralee has claimed one recently, another was hit by a car on the outskirts of Ardfert (also Kerry) in December and another, reported to us yesterday, was also killed by a car.
This one had a ring on its' leg, and a check of the records revealed that it had been ringed as an adult female, by John Lusby, on 27th June 2013 at a nest site near Kenmare. Lat summer, she had just one chick in the nest, one of the few we were able to find in south Kerry last summer. She was found dead by the roadside just 9km WSW from the nest site, on the outskirts of Kenmare, 149 days after it was ringed. A sad end to a beautiful bird.
A question posed by this finding is, was she was still associated with the nest site? Barn Owls can wander widely in winter to hunt and a radio tracking study in Sligo some years ago revealed they could travel up to 7km from the nest site. It is possible that some owls at least might well hunt at even greater distances from home than we previously thought.
