Barn owls may be more widespread than commonly believed

What I call the Owl Relativity Theory could add solidity to the idea that barn owls have much wider distribution in Minnesota than ever imagined. These could be itinerant barn owls, but barn owls nonetheless.

This is not like Einstein's Theory of Relativity, I understand. It's about barn owls, birds that many Minnesota birders would give a left binocular lens to see.

This is the background story.

Karla Bloem is executive director of the International Owl Center in Houston, Minn. She is a barn owl believer, having recorded their nighttime calls in and around Houston County for several years.

These owls are strictly nocturnal, just about impossible to see in the dark. Their calls are very much not typical owl calls, instead very high for owls, screams that most of us would not recognize.

For these reasons it's difficult to determine the bird's actual status here. Recordings are one way to do it if you know your owls.

Bloem has high hopes for barn owl discovery but a low budget for discovery implementation. She does have, however, Andie Harveaux, an educator at the center who has been placing recorders for Bloem for a few years.

"It was at her grandma's place outside of Cambridge that we got a single barn owl call this fall. Last fall we got a barn owl call one night at her parents' place outside of Albert Lea," Bloem wrote in an email.

Grandma, parents — relatives. Calls recorded on devices located for no scientific reason at all, other than human genetics.

Bloem continues: "There was the person outside of Houston who emailed to say she had a dead white owl from outside of Houston. When I pressed for a photo she sent one of a barn owl (she had kept the bird in her freezer for over a year).

"We got another dead one from Chatfield, missing some feathers on a wrist from skidding on the road presumably," Bloem wrote.

"My husband found a more squished roadkill owl outside of La Crescent last year. Then there was one hanging out in a damaged shed (for over a year, apparently) that we found out about from the contractor we hired to build the new owl center.

"And the nest in La Crosse. Then the dead one from Climax in northwestern Minnesota this spring. Just lots of crazy barn owl stuff," Bloem wrote.

Now to the records in the book by the late Robert Janssen, "Birds in Minnesota." He shows verified records dating from 1929, 33 of them from all four seasons, no dates later than 2017.

There is no geographical pattern. Barn owls have been reported from 22 scattered counties, eight of those in the metro area, where population offers greater chance for a sighting.

"And of course you know about the barn owl in Sax-Zim Bog (St. Louis County) in January a few years back that died of starvation," Bloem wrote.

Why would an owl die of starvation?

"I think that owl was far out of range, and had probably wandered hundreds of miles, so was likely in a weakened state," said Sparky Stensaas, founder of Friends of Sax-Zim Bog north of Duluth.

"Barn owls are certainly not very adept at hunting in deep snow either. Not to mention dealing with subzero temperatures. I think all those things contributed. It was just a vagrant bird out of its range. Many of them die," Stensaas said.

These owls eat mostly rodents, heavy on voles (favorites for our larger owl species), and also mice, small rats, shrews, young rabbits and other mammals, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

David Sibley's field guide shows a scant handful of records in Minnesota, the owl's breeding territory essentially ending mid-Iowa.

In that regard, Bloem wrote, "And if folks say this is ridiculously far north, these owls have been documented in Manitoba, including a breeding attempt!"

I have seen barn owls four times. One in British Columbia, inexplicably sitting in a tree in the middle of the day; one in a barn window in Nebraska when we stopped to photograph an interesting deserted farmhouse; one in Texas in the light of a large electric lantern tour guide Kim Eckert flashed over an empty crop field, hoping to intercept a hunting owl while he steered our van down the road one-handed; and one in Dakota County when a $5 bouquet of flowers craftily gained me entrance to a barn holding a barn owl nest with four chicks.

The Roost, annual publication of the Owl Research Institute, is available free of charge. It features a different North American owl species each year, containing descriptive information about each study, illustrated with photographs from the field.

Review the 2023 issue of the Roost at the Owl Research Institute and subscribe to the annual report. The institute is located near Charlo, Mont.

Lifelong birder Jim Williams can be reached at woodduck38@gmail.com.