In 2024, Halifax Scientific Society installed a barn owl box at High Hirst Woodmeadow. This year, we were delighted to discover the box in use!
Here’s Andrew Cockroft from Halifax Scientific Society to tell us more…
“On the 27th April 2024 a Barn Owl Box was put up at High Hirst Woodmeadow by Calderdale Raptor group, with funding from Hebden Royd Town Council. The box was attached to a telegraph pole and looked to be in a perfect spot at the top of the hill at High Hirst. I checked the box a few times from time to time and all was ok and on one occasion a Barn Owl was seen hunting the fields below but flew straight past the box and was not seen again.
Fast forward to the 19th July 2026 and a text message from Ros and Helen, two very experienced raptor workers, to say they had seen a Barn Owl going into the box at High Hirst Woodmeadow, carrying food! They were at Old Town so a brilliant sighting from that distance. The next evening, I went up to have a look and sure enough after 5 minutes a Barn Owl appeared carrying a vole. It flew straight in the box, dropped off the vole and then went straight back out hunting. I was feeling very pleased that the box and all the effort was paying off so quickly. I sent a message to Steve Downing and as luck would have it Steve was at home in Hebden. Steve was going to go up in the morning and put some rings on the young Barn Owls, unless of course the young were too advanced and would fly when he went up the ladder.
The next morning Steve Downing and Phil Dyson (the very man who put box up in the first place) went to ring the birds and to their total amazement there were six, SIX young Barn owls in the box (four is average). All six were carefully ringed and placed back in the box. Over the next few weeks all the birds were seen to fly the nest, a remarkable story.
Steve Downing runs the North of England Raptor Group and one of the objectives is to ring birds and monitor their movements and success rate. The High Hirst birds were ringed with individual codes so their numbers can easily be seen in the field by local raptor workers. It was a very good year for Barn Owls locally, but already one young bird from another nest site nearby has been found dead.
Please keep an eye out for Barn Owls and report any sightings to colour.ringing@bto.org. The Barn owls have an Orange or Blue band on the right leg, with silver ring on the other leg. Two large letters on the coloured band (e.g. PK , PL or PP) and hopefully are easily recognized.”
– Andrew Cockroft
All photos credited to Andrew Cockroft
