Ciarán's story

Last summer, Ulster Wildlife celebrated a bumper brood of barn owl chicks in County Antrim, the largest ever recorded in Northern Ireland, all thanks to the dedicated efforts of volunteer Ciarán Walsh.  

The discovery of five healthy barn owl chicks on privately owned farmland, near Crumlin, caused much excitement last July, generating unprecedented national and international media coverage. These much-loved but under-threat birds normally have one or two chicks per year, so this was the biggest brood they have ever recorded.

The welcome boost in numbers was all down to their passionate volunteer nest-minder Ciarán Walsh who provided the birds with supplementary food throughout the harsh winter and wet spring. Barn owls are unable to hunt in adverse weather, as their soft feathers are not waterproof, so the relentless conditions could have spelt disaster for this breeding pair.

With fewer than 50 breeding pairs of barn owls in Northern Ireland, and only two known active nest sites, Ciarán’s selfless actions ensured the survival of not only the two adults but their bumper brood of chicks, against the odds, which we hope will go a long way towards helping these beloved birds bounce back.

We spoke to Ciarán about how it all started, how he felt when he discovered the owlets, and what he loves about being a barn owl volunteer. 

“It all started about six years ago when I replied to an Ulster Wildlife tweet, which asked, ‘Had anyone seen a barn owl?’ Being a salmon fisherman (not a very successful one!) I would often be on the rivers just before sunrise and every so often I would be lucky enough to see owls. 

It would be mostly long-eared owls, but occasionally the odd barn owl would pop up. So, when I found out that barn owl numbers were in poor shape, I just had to get involved to see if I could help turn their fate around.

At first the surveying was slow going, with only long-eared owls showing up, but then I took to Google maps and looked at likely barn owl sites close to my home at Lough Neagh. On my first day’s search I struck gold - an active barn owl nest site! That was six years ago, and I haven't found another one since.

After receiving my Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) photography license, I placed a camera inside the nest site to monitor their activity. During one of our disastrously wet weeks in January, I noticed from the images captured on the camera that the male barn owl was struggling to hunt and looked weak, dishevelled and in very poor condition.

Fearing that we could seriously lose this bird and the nest site, I asked my wife and daughter to go to Currys and pick me up a freezer whilst I headed to Coleraine to collect my first shipment of 750 frozen dead day-old chicken poults.

On the journey home, I placed five of the poults under the bonnet to help defrost them and headed straight to the nest site where I left them, in the hope that it wasn't too late to save this male owl. Watching that evening’s recorded footage from the camera it was fantastic to see the male come out of the nest and immediately pick up and eat the poults.

Over the next couple of weeks of continued bad weather, I placed day-old poults at the site and it was amazing to see both the male and the female’s condition improve so much over such a short time.  

As one storm after another rolled in through the spring of 2018, I would supplementary feed the owls like this on nights of poor weather to help keep this pair in peak condition.  I kept that going through the breeding-period and continued it as and when the chicks hatched.  

Heading down to Lough Neagh week after week in the lashing rain and bitter gales wasn't pleasant, but one night I was rewarded for all those horrible evenings when I was watching the video footage of the nest, and five owlets came out of the nest box!

I'm sure my cheering was heard right across County Antrim, from the joy of knowing that not only had I saved the adult birds but that I'd helped the adults rear the largest brood of owlets on the island this year.

Now the next stage of my journey is to try to locate the owlets once they've fledged and sought their own territories. To help me with this, I’m training my wee spaniel pup, Tyto, to sniff out barn owl pellets around fence posts, trees and old farm buildings - possibly the world’s first ever barn owl sniffer-dog.   

Another part of the pleasure of volunteering with Ulster Wildlife is the people you meet, from farmers, landowners and community groups to those you get to work directly alongside, such as volunteers Paul Toner and Noel McKernan. Between the three of us, we have put up about 18 barn owl nest boxes, surveyed countless old farms and found ten new long-eared owl nests.

Along the way, I've not only picked up a much deeper understanding and knowledge of owls and the habitat that they prefer to hunt over, but improved on joinery and construction skills too, not to mention enhancing my people and media skills, and the feeling that I’ve made a real difference. 

For me it has been a great six years volunteering with Ulster Wildlife, and I strongly recommend anyone to get involved: believe me, you get back far more than you put in – including new friends, new skills and knowledge, great craic, as well as knowing that you're doing YOUR bit to help our local wildlife.”

Barn owls face an uncertain future in Northern Ireland and urgently need your help to survive. By donating to Ulster Wildlife’s barn owl appeal, you can help provide new homes for barn owls; secure existing nest sites; improve their foraging habitat; skill-up volunteers to survey and monitor barn owls, and ultimately improve the plight of this much-loved and endangered species. Donate now.