The Guatemalan Barn Owl
The Guatemalan Barn Owl (scientific name Tyto furcata guatemalae) not only lives throughout Guatemala but ranges from Guatemala through Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Panama. It looks very similar to the North American Barn Owl (Tyto furcata pratincola) but does have more spotting on chest and belly.
Barn owls in Guatemala are one of only four open country owls there.
In keeping with the kind of high levels of biodiversity in the tropics, the relatively small region of Guatemala contains 18 resident species of owls. The highest number of species (16) are found in the highlands, but the lowlands on both the Atlantic (13) and Pacific (12) slopes have a good number as well. Of the 18 species, 12 of them are forest specialists very much like our barred and spotted owls. The barn owl is one of only four open country hunters out of the eighteen.
Studies have shown that the barn owl is the fifth most common owl in Guatemala. There it hunts primarily rodents and raises its young in tree hollows. It also, without a doubt, inhabits farms and plantations where it preys on various rodent pests.
An excellent work on owls in Latin America is the book “Neotropical Owls” edited by Paula L. Enriquez. Much of the information in this article is indebted to the chapter on Guatemalan owls by Knut Eisermann and Claudia Avendano.
Wyoming is one of those states where there is simply not enough information to build an accurate picture of barn owl populations. The Wyoming Breeding Bird Atlas shows most observations of barn owls and confirmed nest sites in the eastern third of the state, however, the southwest corner also has its share of barn owls sightings and there are isolated records in other areas. Most breeding records are from Goshen County in the southeastern corner. They have also been observed breeding in cliff crevices in neighboring Platte County. But sightings and confirmed breeding sites recorded by state biologists are low in number and scattered.
State biologists report that barn owls are doing well overall in the state, with good populations in the southern panhandle where escarpments and cliffs provide numerous nesting sites, in the North Platte Valley, and in the southwestern and south central portions where many grasslands are still intact. The eastern half of the state supports fewer barn owls due to the intensive farming of soy and corn which provide very poor habitat. This is a fairly recent change—over the past ten years, a great deal of prairie has been turned into high intensity farming of these row crops.
From shortly after the clearing of the forests by the first pioneers till the 1960’s, barn owls were common in the myriad small farms that dotted the countryside from east to west. Barns, sheds, abandoned buildings, and large dead trees provided nesting sites; and hedge rows, fallow fields, pasture, hay, and corn cribs provided habitat for high numbers of rodents. Nearly every barn in the state had its resident barn owls.
