North American Barn Owl
However the hole size 5 x 5 inches should not be increased as this may help protect the birds against larger predators such as great horned owl.
North american barn owl. Barn owl tyto alba. The barn owl is from the family of the old world owls. You can find them by listening for their eerie raspy calls quite unlike the hoots of other owls.
All other north and central american owls are members of the strigidae family true owls. For north american barn owls the internal depth from the bottom of the entrance hole to the floor of the box and the floor area should be increased by about 30. Now most of these barns are gone and metal barns are now the substitute.
The barn owl is north america s only member of the monkey faced tytonidae owl family. Ghostly pale and normally strictly nocturnal barn owls are silent predators of the night world. At one time when there were wooden barns all over the continent in the south this bird of prey was a regular resident.
A few including the international ornithologists union separate them into distinct species as is. The eyes are dark umber and the bill is straw colored. Lanky with a whitish face chest and belly and buffy upperparts this owl roosts in hidden quiet places during the day.
The american barn owl tyto furcata is usually considered a subspecies group and together with the western barn owl group the eastern barn owl group and sometimes the andaman masked owl make up the barn owl cosmopolitan in range the barn owl is recognized by most taxonomic authorities. Barn owls are difficult to count because they re nocturnal and secretive so population sizes are hard to estimate. Owing in part to this difficulty the north american breeding bird survey could not detect a significant population change between 1966 and 2014 although it appears that their numbers have slightly increased in that time.
By night they hunt on buoyant wingbeats in open fields and meadows. The light breast and heart shaped face distinguish this owl from all others.