The Barn Owl is distinguished from other owls by its unique shape, color and voice. This particular, medium-sized owl grows to about 18 inches in height and the legs of a Barn Owl are long with no feathers. The Barn Owls make a loud, rasping hiss, rather than the hoot associated with other owls.
The Barn Owl is primarily white with buff, yellow and brownish yellow shadings. Mildly freckled with dark specks and the blending of colors in the day time caused some to call it, the "golden owl. The Barn Owl's face is notable. The eyes and beak are entirely encircled by a heart-shaped facial ruff of white, rimmed with tan while slightly curved feathers radiate out from the small, dark eyes. The eyes of owls look forward in a fixed position and cannot move to the side, as the human eye can, therefore, to see to the side or back, the owl must turn its whole head. They see very well at night. Their hearing is extremely sharp also, for it is known that a barn owl can strike a mouse in the dark. The Barn Owl has no ear tufts and their tails are square rather than rounded.
Barn owls choose nesting sights almost anywhere. The Barn Owl is a cavity nester and will take readily to man made structures. The Barn Owl uses buildings, caves, cisterns, hollow trees, barns and church steeples as favorite nesting spots. In the West, barn owls not only nest in natural tree cavities and buildings, they also nest in cavities in cliffs and cut banks, stacked hay bales, and in palm trees. Use of these sites often leads to nesting failure like when farmers move bales or the young outgrows the nest at the base of palm fronds. Barn Owls make no effort to build or even line the nest. Both prey base and suitable nesting sites limit the number of barn owls in an area.
After mating the female lays from five to seven white eggs at intervals of two or three days. Incubation starts after the the female lays the first egg. It takes about 33 days for the first egg to hatch, so a nest may contain four or five young of different size and age. People call young owls, "owlets." They are covered with snow-white down for about six days.Buff-colored down gradually replaces the snow-white colors. It develops into a thick, woolly covering that is still in evidence for about 50 days. At this time, the fledging stage is complete. After much wing flapping and practice about the nest, the young venture out for their first lessons in flying and hunting. The little owlets are hungry all the time. Both parents are busy night after night ransacking the adjoining areas to catch an unbelievable number of small ground creatures to feed their ravenous babies.
