iSpying barn owls

Bringing back Suffolk’s barn owls

Help us bring back Suffolk’s barn owls by adding your barn owl sightings to our new interactive online map. Suffolk Wildlife Trust will use the information gathered through this site to:

• help expand the range of barn owls
• to target nest box installation
• and provide habitat advice where it is most needed

Suffolk’s barn owls

Barn owl numbers have declined markedly in the UK since the 1930s. Suffolk records for 1985 show 150 breeding pairs, all nesting in farm buildings or in natural sites such as hollow trees. By 2005, there were thought to be around 125 pairs, restricted almost exclusively to north-east Suffolk. The lack of natural nest sites was highlighted as the critical factor limiting their breeding success.

Since then, Suffolk Wildlife Trust and Suffolk Ornithologists Group have worked with community groups and landowners to install over 1,000 nest boxes in areas where there are known or historic barn owl populations. Nest box checks from the 2011 breeding season found 192 breeding pairs in boxes.