19/08/2026
A brilliant year for Barn Owls at Wiston Estate🦉
We’re incredibly proud to support such a thriving Barn Owl population, and this season has given us plenty to celebrate. As our ecologist is a licensed bird ringer we were able to carefully visit our nest boxes, record and ring the broods, and gather valuable information about how these beautiful birds are doing across the estate.
We now have twelve Barn Owl boxes across Wiston, including five new boxes installed this spring and with more planned for the future. This year, we ringed sixteen chicks and one roosting adult, with encouraging numbers of chicks recorded across the boxes. One box even held an impressive brood of seven chicks — our largest of the season!
Barn Owls rely on rich edge habitats for hunting, where hedgerows, scrub, field margins and grassland provide the small mammals they depend on. Their success is a wonderful reminder of how important connected, wildlife-friendly landscapes are — and of the work we’re continuing to do at Wiston to care for and restore them.
Barn Owl nests were visited, and birds ringed, by a trained and licensed ringer operating under a Schedule 1 licence and BTO permit.
📸 Photo credit - Jane Goring
