Barn owls in Audlem

Tuesday night's AWEG (Audlem Wildlife & Ecology Group) meeting heard how a pair of barn owls had raised two chicks this year in the garden of Mike and Daleta Harthern in Monks Lane.

As well as Mike and Daleta, David Bromont of the South Cheshire Barn Owl Group attended the meeting to describe how the barn owls had fared since the eggs were laid on 24th April and 1st May.

Photographs of the adult owls and chicks were shown. Barn owl chicks are remarkably content to be handled and will fall asleep in people's arms as they are weighed or ringed.

Tawny owls are, however, very different in this respect – they will even go for the eyes of anyone trying to get near a nest, as one local volunteer found to the cost of one eye.

There were many questions about barn and other owls likely to be found in this area.

Barn owls have had a good year in Cheshire – that's the old county including the Wirral. Last year, an extimated 144 pairs raised chicks and this year is expected to ven better. There have been 24 breeding pairs in south Cheshire.

This a major recovery from 1999 when only 10 pairs were recorded in Cheshire.

You can find out more by clicking on the Cheshire Barn Owls website – the link is below the photographs taken by Mike Harthern.

You can also find out more about AWEG by clicking on the link to the group's page on Audlem Online. 

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