Roy the Barn Owl visits Dale Farm

Roy along with his handlers, Duncan, Rachel and Sam came to visit Dale Farm. Roy certainly proved himself to be a bit of a celebrity and seemed to enjoy all the attention as well as his well deserved treats.

Do not be mistaken by Roy’s, fluffy and gentle demeanor; Roy is in fact a very skilled escape artist, who caused everyone a lot of worry a couple of years ago when he escaped from his home at Royden Park.

During Roy’s visit, the people we support as well as staff and volunteers had a chance to ask questions about Roy and Barn Owls. We found out plenty of interesting facts about barn owls that included some of the following:

• Mice, voles and shrews form the bulk of the diet, but they will also take young rats, and have even been observed catching fish from ponds.
• The clutch size is highly variable: four to seven eggs are normal, but as many as 14 have been recorded.
• British barn owls have distinctive white breasts, but in central and eastern Europe they are a shade of dark yellow-orange.
• After many years of decline, the British population is now thought to be increasing slowly.
• These owls don’t hoot, but the male has a distinctive shrieking call, often repeated several times.
• The barn owl is not only the world’s most widely distributed species of owl, but is also one of the most widespread of all birds, as it is found on every continent except Antarctica.
• Many owl species are capable of turning their heads 270 degrees in either direction. That means “they can look to the left by rotating all the way to the right, or vice versa.
• Prolonged periods of snow cover can be devastating for barn owls, leading to many birds starving, as they are unable to find their food.
• Nests are usually in barns or holes in trees, but sometimes quarries or rocky outcrops are used.
• In eastern England barn owls are far more likely to nest in trees than in barns.

Many of the people we support wanted a chance to hold Roy and ask handlers their own questions on a one to one basis. Roy was only to happy to oblige and seemed to enjoy meeting everyone.

Roy was given a chance to stretch his wings in one of our polytunnels. It is obvious Roy is a bit of a cheeky chappie and instead of flying to his handler he enjoyed landing on polytunnel support frames, heads, chairs and anywhere else he could land.

At one point we were all very concerned about Paul’s hat. We were worried Roy had either confused Paul’s hat for his next meal and would fly away with it or Paul would end up having to put his hat in the wash.