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Barn Owls in the Vineyards VITICULTURE Barn Owls in the Vineyards Natural Born Killers Story and photos by Christopher Sawyer re you sick of pocket gophers and swoop and strike quickly before the prey can other rodents gnawing away on your react. vines and other costly investments on your property? Well, the answer to this PUTTING BARN OWLS TO WORK Adilemma could be as easy as purchasing a small These impressive attributes caught the atten- box and befriending a feathery creature tion of Mark Browning, a professional 2 with golden wings and a heart animal trainer and field researcher shaped face. for the Pittsburgh Zoo. Brown- Welcome to the kingdom ing’s knowledge of barn owls of the barn owl, the most inspired him to develop a widespread land bird in way to put the predatory the world. bird to work in rodent- Known for its vora- plagued vineyards and cious appetite, mag- farms: the Barn Owl nificent plumage and Box (see sidebar). Con- amazing flying skills, the barn owl is a mem- ber of the Tytonidae family. Highly success- ful in natural breeding Barn owl boxes can and longevity, the mul- help growers reduce tiple subspecies of this populations of gophers Vineyard & Winery Management • May/Jun 2009 www.vwm-online.com bird have spread around the and other rodents in globe. Currently, the two best- vineyards. (Photo by Mark known races are the barn owl of Browning.) Europe, Tyto alba alba, and the North American barn owl, Tyto alba pratincola. At a Glance In terms of living conditions, the barn owl is a hole nester that lives in closed quarters or Rodents like pocket gophers can wreak dark cavities found inside hollow trees, barns, havoc in vineyards, and are difficult to sheds and other outbuildings. When fully eliminate. grown, the birds stand 14-inches tall, have a Barn owls are natural predators that nest 42-inch wingspan and gen- in barns, sheds and hollow trees. erally weigh about 1 pound. A single barn owl family can eat up to Christopher Sawyer The skills of the feathery 3,000 rodents in one year, and are well is a sommelier, wine educator predator are based on its suited to vineyards. and critic who travels around keen sense of sight, razor A researcher from the Pittsburgh Zoo has the globe following wine sharp talons, and swiftness created a barn owl box as a tool for inte- trends and judging wine in of flight, which allow it to grated pest management. international competitions. VITICULTURE A Word About THE BARN OWL BOX MEASURING 26-INCHES DEEP, 17-inches high and 17-inches wide, Browning’s Barn Owl Box has a circular 5.5-inch entry hole and a landing ledge, which allows the male bird to quickly feed the mother and chicks before leaving for its next kill. The box includes a viewing window in the back and a removable floorboard for easy cleaning when the box is not occupied. Browning says his decision to make the box out of lightweight plastic was based on the durability of the material. “It’s a nice thought to make a box out of cheap half-inch plywood. But unfortunately, those boxes will not last long enough to establish the site as a place that is favorable to the barn owls for an extended period of time.” One of the largest concentrations of sales, so far, has been to farmers and vineyard owners in California. “It is a state that is very progressive in thinking,” said Browning. The boxes are priced at $109.87 for a barn-mounted model, and $129.87 for a post-mounted model. They are available through Browning’s website, www.barnowlbox.com, and in his new Barn Owl Box Store, locat- ed in Napa’s Oxbow Market. structed of molded plastic, the boxes barn owl project on a whim. “I did it can be mounted into the sides of pre- because I am passionate about show- fabricated barns, or on tree trunks or casing the unique qualities of birds metal poles in shaded areas. and animals,” he said. “The initial 3 Browning says he started his working concept was based on seeing SAWYER OWLS 1/3V OR if we could raise the bird STACKED PAIR OF 1/6V density and increasing the population of local owls in the northern states.” In Pennsylvania, the barn owl population has been declining since the 1950s. Browning attributes this decline to the change of farming practices, the shrinking amount of wild areas and grasslands, and the increased number of wooden barns being torn down and replaced by Vineyard & Winery Management • May/Jun 2009 www.vwm-online.com steel buildings that make it hard for the owls to build their nests. After receiving a $100,000 grant to conduct his research, Browning A project designed to increase local owl popula- tions in northern states inspired Mark Browning, field researcher for the Pittsburgh Zoo, to develop the Barn Owl Box. VITICULTURE teamed up with Moraine Preserva- and other professionals formulate the barn owl is simple: The more tion Fund and other professionals in new efforts to preserve this species. the rodent population increases, the the field to conduct the first satellite “It’s very gratifying to add more greater the number of owls that will telemetry tracking study of barn owls. knowledge to the study of a marvel- be present. Thus, the key to integrat- After breeding of the birds was com- ous bird that has accompanied man ed pest management is to establish pleted, 16 young owls were chosen to throughout history,” Browning said. enough barn owls so that the rodent’s be part of the unique research project. Other types of barn owl projects have reproductive rate cannot keep up with With lightweight transmitters attached been used in many different agricultural the numbers being consumed. to their legs, the owls were released zones as well. In Florida, for instance, To help this cause, the barn owl— in western Pennsylvania in the fall of the raptor is used to hunt rodents in the unlike most other bird species—has 2007 and tracked for one year. sugar cane fields. In Ohio, the birds are a tendency to produce a lot of young. According to Browning, the results used in nut orchards, dairy farms and In a common year, a male and female of the project were phenomenal. In other agricultural zones. And in Israel, couple can produce multiple broods the fall, many of the young owls trav- the successful use of nesting boxes in (the birth of young chicks in the nest). eled south to the Gulf states. While farmlands has encouraged the country’s The median average is between four flying over the Allegheny Mountains Ministry of Agriculture to begin funding to six healthy babies per birth. to South Carolina, some covered more the project. With the maturity of each bird than 200 miles in a four-day period. On the West Coast, Browning says comes its insatiable hunger to eat One owl flew as far as New Orleans for the combination of trees, marshes, mice, gophers and other rodents. the winter—a distance of over 1,200 natural grasslands and agricultural The biggest feeding frenzy occurs at miles. And after wintering on the coast landscape makes the coastal and inte- harvest, the peak of the season when of South Carolina, another returned to rior regions ideal locations for barn rodents become particularly hungry a barn only 40 miles from its original owls to thrive. after the crops are gone. release point near Pittsburgh. Another advantage of owl boxes is Together, the continuum of data AMONG THE VINES that a single structure covers a lot of from the study has helped Browning In the vineyard, the benefit of using ground. On an estate property, Brown- 4 SAWYER OWLS 1/2H,I OR COMBINATION Vineyard & Winery Management • May/Jun 2009 www.vwm-online.com VITICULTURE the early 1990s—including an old dairy built in the 1940s that hadn’t been used for many years—they found These cane rat that the young planted vines and the bones came foundation of the property’s clas- from a single sic old barn had been ransacked by barn owl box gophers. While looking for a solution placed in a to this dire situation, Othman typed sugar cane in the word “gopher” on Google and field. was pleasantly surprised to find many references to barn owls. To increase the raptor popula- tion on the property, the Othmans installed custom-made wooden nests. “It was truly amazing to see what a big dent the owls can make in the gopher population,” said Othman. “Despite ing says that an owl family living in good due to the limitations of other their natural beauty, we often refer to one box can patrol up to 20 acres of nesting sites in vineyards. our resident owls as ‘gopher-killing vineyards. On larger, more sophis- machines,’ ‘flying death’ or ‘silent kill- ticated properties, additional boxes ‘GOPHER-KILLING MACHINES’ ers.’ They really are one of man’s best can be added to increase the density. Kynsi Winery, in California’s San Luis friends.” In terms of scale, Browning says that Obispo County, pays tribute to its Similar results have been seen at a single barn owl family can eat up to resident barn owls on its wine labels. many other vineyards throughout Cali- 3,000 rodents in one year. When proprietor Gwen Othman and fornia. In the Lodi area, proprietor Tom In addition, this species can tol- her family began converting their Hoffman of Heritage Oak Winery began erate the presence of humans, and Edna Valley property to vineyards in installing owl boxes on his 106-acre unlike hawks and other owls, barn 5 owls can live in close proximity to one another.
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