Preying for success

Lifestyle A voluntary group working to ensure the survival and success of Ireland’s endangered barn owl is getting a positive response from landowners and schools throughout Galway. Its founder, wildlife photographer John Carrig, tells STEPHEN CORRIGAN how small changes can make a big difference and how the Barn Owl Project plans to spread its wings and work with community groups nationwide.

When wildlife photographer John Carrig founded the Barn Owl Project in 2019, what was known about this endangered species of bird’s presence throughout Galway was limited to say the least.

Official records from BirdWatch Ireland documented just six or eight nesting sites around the county, but since John and the team behind the project got to work, up to 50 have been identified.

While some of these have been created through the placement of nest boxes by this team of local volunteers whose work extends beyond just Galway, many more nests were there just waiting to be discovered – and protected.

The Barn Owl Project’s work is not limited to the location of unregistered sites, though. A huge part of what the volunteers do is education, through visiting schools and community groups and through talking to landowners who, in many ways, hold the fate of these mesmerising creatures in their hands.

One of the main threats posed to the barn owl is secondary poisoning with rodenticide – when the owl feeds on rats and mice that have been poisoned, causing them to die as a result.

This, coupled with a lack of suitable nesting sites and road collisions, has led to a declining population, to the point where the barn owl now has ‘red conservation status’.

“The barn owl has always been well-known in Ireland, but most people have never seen one. It’s called the ‘scréachóg reilige’ in Irish and 150 years ago, people would have known them as ‘the Banshee’, because of the noise they make,” says John.

“They were very prevalent in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s and were known as the farmer’s friend because they were a way of controlling rodents. Farmers would leave a hole in the apex of the barn because they knew it would attract them in,” he adds, although despite their name, they don’t necessarily nest in barns.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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