Did Jane actually propose, or just slip the ring on?
- Alistair
- Jun 8
- 3 min read
One of the first things we did after starting the nature restoration project at Cefn Garthenor in May 2021 was to put up a barn owl box in the old railway barn. The railway barn was actually created as the lambing shed back in the day, constructed at some stage after the old railway line between Carmarthen and Aberystwyth closed. The last passenger trains stopped in 1965, but dairy products continued to be transported from Port Llanio Dairy, just a mile or so away from us, until 1970. After that, the railway tracks were put to good use, many on local farms. We have a good few gate posts made from railway track, and many of the uprights in the barn are railway track. Thus the name.
Anyway, the railway barn is now home to the barn owls. An adult pair moved in soon after the box went up and their first brood hatched in spring 2022. We have now had owlets born in each of the last 5 years, the latest this spring. Barn owls are pretty faithful to each other and their nesting sites, so they will return. However, while they can live for 20 odd years in captivity, they average four or five in the wild. That said, that average takes into account a lot of deaths at a young age, so it is very possible we still have the same couple. But, perhaps over time, if not already, we might get new parents who were born in the box. Ringing the owls will help us establish this and much more.
This year we did not have a camera trap set up (those pesky beavers have been getting all the attention), but we always know that the barn owls are around, especially when they have young to feed. After dusk, we get the blood curdling screech of the adults heading off to hunt and the snorting of the hungry youngsters coming from the barn. Often, walking along the bridleway as the light fades, you can see an adult hunting over the marshy grassland that sits below. Beautiful and deadly. Walk in the yard with a head torch after dark and you may catch the white underside of one of these screeching banshees in your beam. As previously blogged, the parents are kept busy … those babies are very, very hungry.
We have not managed to get them ringed (rung?) every year, but Arfon from the Teifi Ringing Group has done it a couple of times. This year, Jane, one of his colleagues came along. All ringers must be registered through the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology), and rightly so, as it strikes me that ringing a birds foot is no easy feat (feet, surely?!). What they do amazes me. It must be easier to propose and get a ring on your partner’s finger than to ring a barn owl.
There is a method. It is easier to ring a bird when it is a little dopy (don't think I'll take the engagement ring analogy any further at this point), so for many it is best to do it at night. But for a night hunter, like the barn owl, it is a day time job.
What Jane did this year was, to my mind at least, amazing. Not only did she ring the two owlets, but also both parents ... something we have not achieved before. They were clearly kipping in the box when she opened up, just after noon on 15 May. They are night owls for a reason. Having seen what they do to a vole, I’m certain I would have been very nervous about popping the question … but I think Jane was more audacious and just slipped that ring on.
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