What Do Young Barn Owls Eat?

Video Transcript

"Barn owls are, like most owls nocturnal but unlike many owls they are probably among the most nocturnal. Which means that their activities and specifically their foraging is done at night. Because they are called barn owls that gives you sort of a clue that they are a bird that do often nest in old barns or other old buildings, often even in cities or suburban situation if there's an abandoned building or an old church belfry or something. And as a result of the kinds of places they breed and the fact that they are so completely night active, nocturnal, there have been a lot of studies done in terms of how they're able to forage in the dark and it turns out that in many cases they feed almost completely on rats and mice, but that they are capable of locating these birds, in almost complete darkness so long as their ears are not obstructed. They obviously, their eyes are able to adjust to very low light conditions. Unlike a lot of owls they have dark eyes instead of yellow eyes. But their eyes are really probably secondary much of the time in terms of their foraging behavior because the ears of the barn owl along with the ears of many owls are actually asymmetrical, both in their position on the side of the bird's head, but the internal configuration of the auditory canals is not symmetrical on each side. So they're actually hearing sounds sort of in two different ways. So they're using the technique of triangulation basically. They're hearing the sound in one hear one way and one the other. And even if they can't see it, they're extremely adept at flying down and using their talons, because they are predators, to grasp a rat or a mouse which they will then take back and feed to the young. So they don't take particularly the numbers of insects and snakes and other things that some other owls that do more hunting out in the open. Because barn owls do a lot of their hunting literally in buildings or in sort of urban environments where the prey selection isn't as great. But they will forage out over open fields too. But in most cases they're looking for mice and even things the size of rats."