Ornithologists say 2013 will be viewed as the worst year ever recorded for one of Britain’s barn owls.
At British Wildlife Centre, Surrey, England – Courtesy, Wikipedia
The protected birds are under threat after four successive years of long winters, cold springs and wet summers, resulting in a population decline of more than three-quarters.
In a typical year, conservationists estimate, Britain should be home to as many as 4,000 pairs of the birds. They fear that there are now fewer than 1,000 breeding pairs in England,
“They have gone from scarce to rare,” said David Ramsden, head of conservation at the Barn Owl Trust. “The scale of the decline is not normal.”
Second-coldest March on record
The cold winters of 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 had a devastating effect on the species, and the wet June of 2012 killed many nesting owls. March this year was the second-coldest on record, and led to a high mortality rate in adult barn owls. “It’s been a catastrophic year,” Ramsden added.
The owl’s plight appears not to be confined to Britain. Earlier this year, Dr Akos Klein of the Hungarian Barn Owl Foundation said that his country had seen a similar dramatic decline.
In Hungary, “March this year was like January”
“Out of 30 regular nest sites, we found one active nest and one solitary bird,” he said. “This is pretty much the case all over Hungary. Our March this year was like January.”
Of course the Guardian’s headline blames the owl’s deaths on “freak weather”
See entire article:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/14/barn-owls-threatened-freak-weather
Thanks to Caroline Snyder in West Virginia for this link