JOHN BRUCKER, of the Oxford Ornithological Society, pays tribute to Pat Wixey, who this year was honoured with the MBE for his work with barn owls
In the second half of the last century there was considerable concern about the plight of barn owls. Of all the owl species these have always been special favourites, especially admired when seen floating like ghostly apparitions over the fields at dusk or dawn, or occasionally hunting in daylight during the short nights of summer. By the 1970s it was realised they were becoming quite scarce.
Among suggested causes were cold winters such as those in 1947 and 1963, less food resulting from changes in farming, the use of rodenticides, casualties on busy roads, and the loss of breeding sites.
While they still face considerable problems more than 30 years later, the situation is markedly improved in one area, West Oxfordshire, where they have made an impressive comeback. This can largely be attributed to the determined efforts of one man, Pat Wixey.
As a young boy, Pat enjoyed outdoor interests and gained a close knowledge of the countryside around his childhood home at Eynsham and later at Witney where he now lives.
His introduction to barn owls was as a ten-year-old when he found a pair at a nest between Stanton Harcourt and Eynsham. In 1993 he put up a nest box in the same spot and was delighted to find owls returning immediately.
At Curbridge in the winter of 1986 Pat found a dead female, a road victim, near a barn in which a male was roosting. This gave him the idea to place a nest box there. The male soon called in a female and by the spring they had produced five young.
This experience confirmed Pat's belief that lack of suitable nest sites was a special difficulty. He noted that many barn owls nested in mature elms before the problems caused by Dutch Elm disease. Even more obvious was that the many favoured barns once found in nearly every farmyard had been removed, modernised or converted into houses.
These thoughts set him on a 20-year course of action to provide boxes at suitable locations. He erected about a hundred of them in an area between the River Evenlode, the Gloucestershire border, Faringdon and Chipping Norton. Of these, about 45 have been successful.
Ringing the chicks has been an important part of Pat's work, enabling him to monitor the degree of success he achieves. Since gaining a licence he has ringed more than 950 owls and is looking forward to reaching the 1,000.
Recoveries show that while generally the young birds stay locally within the 10k square of the nest site, there have been recoveries from Leicestershire, Somerset, Herefordshire, York, Wales, Beaconsfield, Worcestershire and Salisbury.
Unfortunately, their lives are short. Previously, the longest lived barn owl recovered by Pat was only five years old but he was thrilled to find one nesting this spring that was nine years old.
Road casualties were the most frequent cause of death which is not surprising considering the amount of traffic today. Drowning in water troughs was a more unexpected reason.
It has been suggested that they use them to bathe and clean up after a long period in the nest. Sadly, they flop into troughs that have no perches, get waterlogged by their soft feathers and cannot fly out.
Last year was unusually difficult for them because of a slump in the number of Short-tailed field voles, their main prey. This caused owls to fly in desperate searches during daylight hours, giving delight to people watching them at places such as near Witney car park who did not realise their trauma.
The females could not achieve sufficient weight to enable them to breed and only nine young were ringed. Such slumps in prey are usually short-lived and owls seem to be back on track this year with some producing broods of five and six.
Interestingly, they seem to have brought in a wider range of prey items, with wood mice being taken more frequently than usual. Although first indications are good, the later survival of the young in the exceptionally wet weather this summer must be in doubt. Pat's efforts have given him great enjoyment, especially as through careful study he has been able to learn about the lives of these magnificent creatures.
He understands them so well he can see the countryside with Barn Owl eyes', knowing their requirements and how to give them maximum help.
Pat Wixey's award of an MBE at the age of 65 in this year's New Year Honours for services to bird conservation was thoroughly well deserved. He said at the time: "I m honoured that someone thought I have done something good. The barn owls were endangered when I first started and now it is good to see so many of them coming back to West Oxfordshire."
We and the owls owe him a debt of gratitude for doing so much to help their survival in Oxfordshire.
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