Belongs to: owls

Barn owl Tyto alba

Distinctive pale buff and white owl, seen quartering fields at dusk

Habitat: woods, fields, hedges and heaths

Once common resident, declining rapidly in recent decades

White underparts, buffy orange upperparts; pale face with dark eyes

Flies mainly at dusk, quartering field margins and marshes; sometimes hunts along roadside verges

Eats mainly small mammals, especially field voles, sometimes small birds; regurgitates pellets of indigestible remains

Nest is a hole in an old hollow tree or a building

1-2 broods Mar-May; 4-7 white eggs