15 Purbeck barn owl chicks ringed to track farmland gains — SkimNews
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- Birds of Poole Harbour, Carey Ringing Station and the National Trust partnered to ring 15 barn owl chicks and one adult across three Purbeck farmland sites — the first ringing of the species in the area.
- National Trust countryside manager Mark Singleton said the project will assess whether tenant farmers' stewardship — longer grass, maintained hedgerows and scrub patches supporting voles — is actually driving local owl recovery.
- Barn owl numbers have fallen significantly over the past century, though Singleton said there are 'encouraging signs' of a local comeback that the ringing data will help verify year on year.
- Licenced ringer Kate Fox of Carey Ringing Station said individual barn owls cannot be reliably distinguished by sight, so rings are the only way to tell whether birds moving between nest boxes are new arrivals or previously recorded birds.
- The ringing was carried out under a special licence under British Trust for Ornithology guidance, reflecting barn owls' status as a Schedule 1 breeding species — illegal to disturb at the nest without a licence.
- The project is set to run annually, with organisers planning to expand next year by erecting more nest boxes across the Purbeck farmland sites.
Why it matters: Barn owls carry Schedule 1 legal protection, so the 16 birds ringed across three Purbeck farms give the National Trust its first multi-year dataset to test whether tenant farmers' hedgerow and grassland stewardship actually drives owl recovery — with more nest boxes slated for next year.
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