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Napa County Resource Conservation District |
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Napa County Resource Conservation District |
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Habitat for Hooters Program Description
Goals and Objectives:
- Increase habitat for barn owls in agricultural areas
- Promote a natural and sustainable form of rodent control
- Provide an outlet for high school students to gain work ethics and marketable skills through the creation and operation of their own business.
- Encourage stewardship of resources relating to wildlife habitat.
The RCD and Friends of the Napa River are jointly sponsoring a new program called Habitat for Hooters (HFH). The main focus of HFH will be the production and sale of barn owl nest boxes. HFH is working with the Vintage High School Agriculture Department´s Resource Occupation Program to set up an owl box production company of student workers. The net profits of the box sales will be divided between scholarship funds for the members of the student business, and support of the other educational and monitoring programs of HFH. It is anticipated that in the first year of the program, 200 boxes will be produced and sold. HFH hopes to begin producing boxes in the spring of 2001.
When farmers and citizens purchase a barn owl box from Habitat for Hooters, they will not only receive a well built and field tested product, but will become a part of the larger HFH program. Each box will include information on placement and installation of owl boxes, owl box maintenance, and the benefits of having barn owls in vineyards. HFH will offer periodic seminars and informational brochures on local wildlife in agricultural settings and alternative forms of pest control.
It is anticipated that after the first year, HFH will be largely self-supporting through the sale of owl boxes and membership fees. Membership to HFH will be offered on a yearly basis and will likely include consultation services for placement of owl boxes, a 10% discount on all boxes purchased, monitoring and reporting of usage of boxes, and yearly maintenance of boxes (on up to 10).
Breeding pairs of owls typically produce 6 to 8 owlets a year, so owl populations on farms with owl boxes should steadily increase over time. To monitor the success of the barn owl box program, owls will be banded yearly at each box on the property of interested members. By banding birds, HFH will be able to determine the program's success in recruiting breeding pairs and sustaining a self-perpetuating owl population. The banding program will also provide vineyards with information on box usage, and presents an opportunity for population assessment of barn owls in Napa County. In future years, as the HFH program becomes established, there will be tremendous opportunities for research on the extent of the program´s contribution to natural pest control in vineyard agriculture. Potential studies could include dispersal and migration patterns, diet composition, and rodent counts on plots with owl boxes and those without.
HFH will encourage and promote recycling of resources wherever possible. Once a year, at the close of the nesting season, HFH staff will visit each owl box of members and empty the box of all owl castings and debris, preparing it for the next year's use. Owl castings will be saved and sterilized for use in the science program of local schools and for research on the diet composition of barn owls. The wood used to build the boxes will be donated from local fruit drying companies, and consists of wood recycled from fruit transport bins. Owl boxes are typically installed on top of a 10 to 14 foot post. HFH will try to provide information on recycled materials (such as well drilling pipes) as the source of base material whenever possible.
The support of the Napa Community and grape growers for HFH has been tremendous. HFH currently has an extensive and growing mailing list of interested vineyards and property owners. This program was developed in Merced County and has seen incredible success and growth since its establishment there four years ago. The Napa program is modeled after the Merced program.
For more information about Habitat for Hooters, please contact program director Janet Barth at (707) 224-3464
Note: Habitat for Hooters emphasizes the need to keep trees in vineyard areas, and strongly discourages the use of barn owl boxes as an alternative to natural woodland habitat.
Natural History of Barn Owls
The diet of barn owls depends on food sources available. They are fairly adaptable and have been know to eat pocket gophers, voles, deer mice, house mice, birds, rats, rabbits, insects, crayfish, bats, and moles. Although barn owls can see in the dark, they primarily use their hearing to hunt prey. Barn owls are highly adapted hunters. The design of their wings renders them almost silent in flight, and their highly developed sense of hearing enables them to hunt in total darkness. They will fly as far as three and a half miles in search of food, routinely flying as much as a mile. While most of their hunting takes place during flight, barn owls also hunt from a perched position.
Barn owls are distributed basically everywhere in the United States. However, barn owls are now considered rare in many states, and are listed as endangered in others. While much of this decline in population can be attributed to predation by great horned owls, loss of nesting sites due to urbanization and agriculture has also contributed. Barn owls prefer forest near open fields, but can be found in farmlands and towns.
Studies indicate that about 60 to 80 percent of all barn owls die before completing their first year. The causes of death include accidental pesticide poisoning, starvation, predation, moving vehicles, fences, power lines, and predation by the great horned owl. Studies show that for barn owls that survive their first year, the average life span is 18 months to two years. This is just enough time for owls to mature enough to reproduce. Only 1% of barn owls live to reach the ripe old age of ten.
Because of the barn owl´s short life span, they´ve developed tremendous reproductive capacity. In some regions, barn owls have been known to nest all year round. Barn owls in northern and central California begin selecting nesting sites in December or January. The nesting season is from February to May, with peak hatches in April. By July most nests have been vacated by the young, who have flown to nearby trees or buildings for the final stages of their development.
Clutch size varies, and commonly may be up to eight eggs, although typical clutches are from 3 to 6. Hens lay one egg every two or three days and begin to incubate immediately after the first egg is laid. The eggs are incubated for 30 to 33 days. The chicks hatch in the order they were laid, which results in siblings with as much as two weeks age difference between them.
Barn owls do an admirable job controlling gophers and other rodents in fields, but it´s been noted that pests do not seem to decline in the area immediately below nest boxes. One explanation is that animals instinctively protect their young by not drawing attention to themselves at the nest site. To the owl, this means not hunting in the immediate area around the nest. Woodland habitat around vineyards provides good hunting sites, and will increase the chance that nest boxes remain occupied.
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