The barn owl is now one of the rarest breeding birds in Northern Ireland, with a population thought to number only a few tens of pairs. Which means that if one is using a building on your site, the building has become important out of all proportion to its condition.
Barn owls hunt small mammals — field voles, wood mice, rats and shrews — across rough grassland, field margins and the untidy corners of a farm. A breeding pair takes a substantial number of rodents across a season, which makes them a genuinely useful neighbour on a working farm.
Their decline here has been driven by a combination of factors that reinforce each other: the loss of rough grassland and field margins that hold their prey, the conversion or demolition of the old stone farm buildings and ruins they nest in, road mortality along fast roads that cut through hunting ground, and secondary poisoning from rodenticides taken up through their prey.
That last one is worth knowing about even where no development is proposed. Choosing rodenticides carefully, and keeping bait secure, is one of the more effective things a farm can do for barn owls at no cost.
Barn owls are protected under the Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985 as amended, and are afforded additional protection as a Schedule 1 species, making it an offence to disturb them at or near an active nest. They are also a Northern Ireland priority species.
The trigger is almost always a building: conversion, re-roofing or demolition of an old stone farm building, a ruin, or a disused structure with open access at gable or eaves level. These are the same buildings that raise bat questions, so both are usually assessed at the same visit.
Where barn owls are present, mitigation focuses on retaining or replacing the nest site — often by building a barn owl box or a purpose-designed loft space into the converted structure — and on timing works outside the breeding season. Because the population is so small, councils and NIEA take the presence of a nest site seriously.
Very. The breeding population is thought to number only a few tens of pairs, which makes each known nest site significant.
Do not disturb it, and take advice before any works. Disturbance at or near an active nest is an offence, and the timing and design of the scheme can usually be adjusted to accommodate the birds.
Often, yes. Purpose-built barn owl boxes and designed loft spaces within a converted building can work well, provided they are properly sited and installed ahead of the works.
When a council needs more than a checklist, an ecological statement sets out what is on the site, what the proposal will affect and how that effect will be avoided or reduced — in language a case officer can use in their report.
Read about ecological statements →
Other species: Bats · Badgers · Otters · Nesting birds · Red squirrels · Pine martens · Irish hare
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