Tawny Owls have vivid pink eyelids.

The rest of this page contains information which must only be used when dealing with nestling or fledgling Barn Owls. 

If the eyelid edges are vivid pink and not black/brown you have a young Tawny Owl and you need to look at What to do if you find a young Tawny Owl.

• A quick guide to young Barn Owls
• Healthy young Barn Owls
• How to check the condition of a young Barn Owl
• First impressions
• Getting started
• What to do next
• Feeding an owlet
• Finding the nest
• What does a nest look like?– The types of places Barn Owls nest
• Once you have found the nest
• Monitoring the owlet
• Getting help and advice

Legal note
Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, it is an offence to wilfully disturb nesting Barn Owls whilst at or near the nest or to remove/damage/disturb nests, eggs or young at the nest. Getting up to an occupied nest and looking into it or doing anything else to it requires a licence issued by your Country Agency*. However, the Country Agencies are most unlikely to require anyone who returns an owlet to its nest on a single occasion to possess a licence. If repeated visits to the nest are required you should apply to your Country Agency for a nest inspection licence as soon as possible. Please see Licences to disturb nesting Barn Owls for further information.
*Natural England, Scottish Natural Heritage, Natural Resources Wales and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency.

How to check the condition of a young Barn Owl

If you are in any doubt as to whether the owlet you have found is fit and healthy, you should attempt to check it over. The following is a brief guide only. Please see checking the owl’s condition for more detail. Please consider the following, before you get started:

• A smaller owlet can be checked single-handed, but if it’s bigger than a man’s fist you should consider getting a helper to hold its feet.
• Although an owlet’s beak looks quite powerful, a peck is unlikely to cause much damage.
• An owl’s feet can clench powerfully and the talons are sharp so you should keep the feet pointing away from you and avoid contact with bare skin.
• You and any helper should wear thin leather gloves unless the owlet is exceptionally frisky or large in which case more substantial leather gloves may be needed

First impressions

Gaining information about the finding circumstances will help you decide the best course of action.

Firstly, where was the owl when it was first seen? Was it found directly below the nest? Did it fall onto loose straw/vegetation or a concrete floor? Do its wing feathers look long enough to have partly broken its fall?  What has the weather been like? Prolonged rain may mean the adults have been unable to hunt – in this case the owlet is more likely to be starved. 

Was it found outdoors? Is the owlet soaked to the skin? What bodily position was the owl in when it was found and what is its position now? If it is standing, crouching or lying on its front with its feet tucked neatly underneath, it is probably fine. Lying on its side or back is not a good sign, unless you have just put it down in which case it should right itself shortly. If the owlet is alert and makes a long drawn-out defensive hiss or a bill-snapping sound this is a good sign. An owlet that plays dead may be perfectly OK but it may not be. If the owlet does a large watery dropping this suggests it has eaten recently which is a good sign. If you have kept it in a box for a while and find it has produced a pellet this is also a good sign.

What to do next

• If the breastbone is only slightly protruding, something can be felt in the stomach, the wings both retract in the same way, the legs both move OK, the eyes look the same, and there’s no obvious injury then the owl is almost certainly fine and should be returned to the nest as soon as possible. In cases where the owlet is fit but the nest really is impossible to reach you should seek help to locate someone locally involved in monitoring nest sites so they can foster it in to a similarly-aged brood at a different site.
• If one of the wings, legs, or eyes is definitely not the same as the other then the owl needs to be checked over by a vet or experienced wildlife rehabilitator as soon as possible.
• If the owlet is severely emaciated, it may need to be tube fed by an experienced person and then hand fed for a week or two before being returned to the nest. After a delay, returning to the nest is still advisable provided that the owlet is not fully fledged and there are still other unfledged young in the nest. It is an offence to keep a wild bird unless your sole intention is to return it to the wild and it is an offence to do anything that results in the bird being un-releasable. You must not keep and hand rear a single wild owlet otherwise it will become too tame to be released and you will have broken the law. Owlets that for some valid reason cannot be returned to the nest whilst they are still at least partially fluffy and within two weeks of finding, should almost always be passed to an experienced rehabilitator.

The ideal food is dead mice or poultry chicks, available frozen from pet shops, thoroughly defrosted before use. A typical owlet should consume 2-3 day-old chicks or 4-5 mice per 24 hours. An owlet is unlikely to recognise white mice or yellow chicks as food straight away, whereas grey-brown food items may be readily eaten. Unnaturally coloured food items should be cut up (scissors are often best) and placed on a piece of wood in the box close to the owlet, half-matchbox sized pieces are OK. Although owlets can swallow surprisingly large items whole, the inexperienced carer should only place small items in the bill (thumbnail-sized pieces are OK for this) and wait patiently for the owlet to swallow rather than try and push the food down. Once a few bits have been swallowed the owlet should be left in peace and may well start to pick up and swallow the larger food pieces by itself. Please see feeding owls for more detailed information.

Finding the nest

Once it has been established that the owlet is fit and healthy, you will need to find the nest as soon as possible. You are likely to need a ladder for this. Before putting a ladder up, have a good look at where you think the nest entrance may be perhaps using a good torch and/or a pair of binoculars if appropriate. At the entrance there may be tell-tale large, white, bird droppings. There may also be tiny bits of white fluff that have come from the owlets, but you will only see these at close quarters. The nest may not be obvious and you may need to search for it for a while. If you can’t see a nest entrance from inside a building try looking around the outside. When your nose is within a few feet of the nest you’ll almost certainly be aware of a strong ammonia-type smell. Some cavities are impossible to see into but the smell often gives away the nest position. If the owlet you have is well-grown, well-feathered with little fluff, and very mobile, you may want to take a chance and place it at the entrance to the cavity or ledge where you think the nest is. However, if it’s small and/or still very fluffy this is not good enough – you must be sure you are looking at the actual nest entrance and place it just inside.

What does a nest look like? – The types of places Barn Owls nest

Barn Owls do not build a nest as such, but they do need somewhere dry and level to lay their eggs. The majority of recorded nests in the UK are now in purpose-made nestboxes located in farm buildings, trees, barn conversions, or on poles. Barn Owl nests are often situated in or close to human habitation. A very wide selection of nest places has been recorded including, but not limited to:

Obviously the nest will only be found somewhere the adult owls can get into. The minimum hole size a fully grown Barn Owl will land on and pass through is only 70 x 70mm and they can get through a vertical or horizontal slot only 70mm wide. The width of the ledge or cavity containing the nest may be as little as 300mm. Nests are usually at least 3 metres above the ground and may contain other owlets and uneaten or partly-eaten food items such as voles or mice. Barn Owls usually lay their eggs on a layer of “pellet debris”. Pellets are the indigestible part of the diet, mainly the hair of prey items, that have been regurgitated. Individual pellets are usually black-grey in colour and vary from thumbnail to whole-thumb sized. Even where the eggs were laid directly onto some other surface, by the time the young are well-grown, a mat of compressed pellet debris at least the size of a dinner plate will have accumulated.

Once you have found the nest

When you get close to the nest be aware that an owl may fly out – don’t let go of the ladder! From mid-summer onward there is a small chance that you may accidentally disturb an adult sitting on newly laid eggs (their second clutch). If this happens you should ascertain as fast as you can whether or not this nest has the ammonia smell and then leave as soon as possible. If the nest has the ammonia smell then this is where the first brood were raised and so you should place your owlet just inside. If there is no obvious smell then the first brood were, or are, being raised in a separate nearby cavity and you need to find it. Please note that young Barn Owls in a brood are never all the same age or size. There is normally a 2-3 day age gap between each of them. No owlet should ever be permanently removed or withheld from a nest simply because it’s smaller than the others.

In the case of a single owlet, or when there are no other surviving young, the chances of it being fed by the adults, even after only one night’s absence, will be greatly reduced. Once the adults’ pattern of owlet-feeding behaviour has been broken, it is unlikely to resume. In such cases the single owlet should be returned to the nest but you’ll need to place food just inside the nest entrance every night until either an adult resumes feeding, or the young owl stops taking the food you provide. If you are in any doubt about the owl’s condition, or your ability to care for it, please take advice from a vet or experienced rehabilitator.

Legal note: Bear in mind that, unless you have an appropriate licence,  it is illegal  to handle any eggs or young in the nest.

Getting help and advice

If you need further information or advice, please contact a local vet or rehabilitator, or the Barn Owl Trust. The RSPCA may be able to take birds that are injured or emaciated (0300 1234 999 – 24 hour service).

Safety note: Before getting a ladder out, think about your own safety. Make sure you have a companion and a good torch. For awkward cavities a small mirror is often useful. If going alone, tell someone where you are going and when to expect you back. Whilst nest searching and assessing the situation, keep the owlet elsewhere, nearby and suitably contained. Never put your face to the entrance of a cavity and don’t put an un-gloved hand into a cavity, unless you know what is in there.