Barn Owl 4 including a dark-breasted-type
Dark-breasted-type Barn Owl at Southease
My 'best' image at dusk with camera settings of ISO 1600 at 1/10th of a second!
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Dark-breasted-type Barn Owl at Southease (Phil Winter)
Whilst individuals of the Central European race, 'Dark-breasted Barn Owl' T.a. guttata have proved acceptable to BBRC and have been proven by British ringing recoveries of Continental origin, other records have failed to eliminate the possibility of intergrades (BB102:494-503). Furthermore, the appearance of dark-breasted-type Barn Owlets being fed by normal-coloured adults throws and element of doubt on the provenance of unringed guttata in Britain (BB99:210-211).
Dark-breasted-type Barn Owl at Southease (Andrew Bertram)
It was great to enjoy watching this superb-looking Barn Owl alongside its finders Andrew Bertram and Phil Winter. The criteria for Dark-breasted Barn Owl T.a. guttata is detailed in BB102:494-503 and concludes that only birds with completely buff underparts are safely identifiable. Whilst the striking Southease individual is undeniably dark-breasted, crucially, its contrastingly white legs visible in Andrew's image above are strongly suggestive of this being an intergrade. The BB paper includes Plate 334 of a very similar individual photographed in Lincolnshire in March 2009 and note that birds like this occur in eastern England with some regularity, and it could be that genuine T.a. guttata that remain to breed produce offspring like this, perhaps for several generations.
