Our Newest NZ Native Bird: The Barn Owl
Tue, 25 May 2010 10:46 am – Posted by Mandy | 13 Comments
Blogger: North Island Conservation Manager, Mark Bellingham.
Over the past 60 years, the barn owl (tyto alba) has been spotted on many occasions in New Zealand from Westland (1948) to Auckland (1985), but it’s never gained a good enough foothold to be classed as a native (i.e breeding) bird.
Owlets, Photo: Creative Commons, Author: chdwckvnstrsslhm
And no wonder. Any dishevelled bird that arrives on our shores care of a rogue wind, must survive on strange foreign tucker, fend off exotic predators and hunt out a suitable mate.
Cue: stomach aches, loneliness, unanswered mating calls and scraps with unknown foes. The odds that are stacked against them are just mind-boggling.
And yet, so many of our birds have done it, even those ones that are challenged in the wing department (read: the pukeko, the fantail, silvereye).
So over the past two years, birders have been watching the coupling of two barn owls in Kaitaia with growing interest.
After a few abortive attempts to start a family, this particular couple produced three healthy chicks which effectively moves them up a rung from vagrant, to a *drum roll please!*…. native bird.
Our native birds (no – 71) aren’t quite riff raff, but they’re by no means as treasured as our endemic birds because they carry duel (or even multiple) citizenship.
The barn owl, for example, can now claim citizenship in around 30 countries from Samoa to the UK.
Needless to say second-class citizenship isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. In short, it means they’re protected under the wildlife act, and no-one can shoot them, but that’s about as far as its privileges go.
Our underfunded Department of Conservation is already struggling to save our endemic tweeters (like our kakapo and kokako) - barn owls can’t exactly go pleading for government handouts.
They’re firmly placed under the ‘fend for yourself’ category, despite the fact that they are star rat-hunters and they’re largely welcomed by conservationists*.
Already they are facing an uphill battle with a genetic bottleneck (re: inbreeding), but they’re good breeders, and they’ve proven that that they’re robust enough to settle pretty much anywhere (except Antarctica). Some vagrants have even estabished themselves on small islands such as Tonga
Acres of rat and mice-filled open country lies before them in Northland, so who knows - all it might take is a few well placed nest boxes (already in place care of the Wingspan Trust) to help them to truly find their feet.
The only question left in my mind is – who’s going to be their campaign manager for this year’s Bird of the Year competition? Hands up please.
* They have even been shown to co-exist happily with our smaller ruru or morepork, however there are concerns they may snack on endemic birdlife if they move to different areas. Their gut pellets (pellets they throw up to get rid of fur balls) have shown plenty of rats and traces of introduced birds such as yellowhammer, starling and sparrows, and native fernbird.
So, does this mean that the gang of Cockatoos that live in Kapiti are a native species too? That’s vaguely neat.
Sorry, the cockatoo is an introduced species. A bird is only considered native if it comes here on it’s own steam. In this case, the barn owl probably came here from Australia care of a thermal updrift from a fire, and some almighty wind that blew it this-a-way….
thanks for a great feel good post! and incredible to learn that they probably travelled here from australia in a thermal updrift
They are beautiful and fascinating birds, so Harae Mai tyto alba!
The cockatoo is a bit of a dilemma Mandy. Although they were clearly introduced, I understand that there are also cases of birds been found exhausted on West Coast beaches. Did they fly here?
Great news about the Barn Owls! I am only suprised they havn’t arrived earlier, like the pukeko or harrier hawk. There is miles of food and habitat for them. We have lost the Laughing Owl, the South Island has the Little owl, so let us pig-islanders have the beautiful and useful Barn Owl. Chris Smuts-Kennedy told me a great story years ago. While ranger on Little Barrier Island,a visitor one day ran up to him in great excitement and said something about a really big owl sitting in a tree. “is it a Morepork”? he asked. ” no,no, much bigger!” My God, he thought, its a Laughing Owl!. Hope agianst hope he hurried to the tree, there to see a Barn Owl staring down at him. Dream on!
We had a large owl fly into our window here in Piha a couple of weeks ago. It sat stunned for about an hour. Then it flew up into the Pohutakawa where it sat watching us for another hour. All the while it was being bombarded by Black birds. Then last night my partner was walking late at night and one glided silently and sat on a branch near her and just watched her. We have lots of Ruru here, but this is bigger. I guess it is probably a Barn Owl.
[...] them get here. Sheer awesomeness may have also played a part. And as Forest & Bird’s Mark Bellingham points out there’s no warm welcome once you arrive. For vagrants it’s a life of [...]
I live in Torbay, on Auckland’s North Shore. Was amazed to see a large, pale bird with an owl face, fly over our home within the last week. Having seen barn owl photo, I’m nearly certain this is what I saw. Very surprised and pleased. Hope they’re not too much threat to our other smaller birds though
how many times has the barn owl come to new zealand
This is interesting. I have been wondering if ( even hoping) that barn owls would become established in NZ since I was a kid in the 70’s having read in an old Collins bird book thay have been spotyted on occasions here before. I hope they move down this way (Kapiti) and I get to see one in the wild. I saw German Little owls for the first time only 2 years ago in Canterbury, and was chuffed because I alwyas wanted to see them too. Hopefully I will get a chance to record the sounds of these owls for my website sometime too.
Just what our resident native bird population need, another predator!
I was in the Air Force in the early 80s when a barn owl arrived at RNZAF Whenuapai probably via an Orion aircraft transiting from RAAF Edinburgh in South Australia. I reported the arrival to F&Bird and found that at that time it was only the third known alive or dead sighting in New Zealand. I’m delighted to hear that they may now be establishing themselves in the Kataia area