Barn Owl

Tyto alba

The western barn owl is a species of barn owl native to Europe, southwestern Asia, and Africa. It was formerly considered a subspecies group together with barn owls native to other parts of the world, but this classification was found to be paraphyletic with respect to some other members of the genus. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this bird was recorded 284,841 times across 168 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

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Movement and weather

Each season it is first heard regularly where daytime highs are around 26°C (typically 18 to 30°C, from 42 areas). That range is wide, so temperature alone does not explain when it turns up.

Over the weeks it was present in the past year, its centre in North America ranged from 23°N in February to 33°N in June, about 1,000 km apart.

Arrival dates

The week it was first heard regularly in each region, after at least six weeks away. Dates differ from south to north, so a region has a range.

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Figures are effort corrected and come from automatic sound identification, which makes mistakes. How this is measured and how it compares with human observers.