Western Barn-Owl

Western Barn-Owl or Common Barn-Owl, Tyto alba is a species of Tyto owl. It is closely related to the Andaman Masked-Owl, T. deroepstorffi (König et al. 1999, Rasmussen & Anderton 2005) and the Eastern Barn-Owl, Tyto delicatula (Wink et al. 2004b, Christidis & Boles 2008), in which were split from the Western. Sometimes, the American Barn-Owl is split from the Western.

Description
Length is 33 - 39 cm with a wing span of 80 - 95 cm. A pale owl with white heart-shaped face enclosing dark, beady eyes. In flight appears large-headed and short-tailed in flight; ghostly white in headlight beams.

Diet
It hunts by searching flights over open fields and other open and semi-open areas. Preys upon small terrestrial rodents of fields and marshes, mainly common and other colonially living voles, mice and shrews. In smaller amounts it will also take a vast array of other food including larger insects, reptiles, fish, and smaller birds.

Calls
Gives a loud hissing scream or screech, sometimes with a tremulous effect, often rendered as shrrrrreeee; the screech is commonly heard in early months of the year while the partners are in courtship flight. In Britain, the voice gave this owl the name 'Screech Owl', but in 1666, but as early as 1678 it was changed to Barn Owl.