Barn Owls
‘How to Entice Barn Owls to your Farm?’
Paul Moore
They’re known as “the farmer’s friend” because they eat rodents such as wood mice, pygmy shrews and rats. But barn owls are struggling in Ireland – there’s been a 50% decline in the last 25 years. How can farmers help to restore barn owls to their land? Wildlife expert & tillage farmer, Paul Moore, explains how he brought them back to his 140-acre farm in Midleton, Cork. This is a 14-minute podcast from the Groundtips series. To listen just click below, then like, share, review.
About Paul Moore
Paul Moore runs a tillage and beef farm near Middleton county Cork. The mixed 140-acre farm is comprised of 95 acres of tillage, producing malting barley, spring beans, winter barley and oilseed rape. Paul has recently began incorporating regenerative practices on the farm such as the use of multi-species cover crops, longer crop rotations and strip-tilling the spring beans. The remaining 45 acres is mature grassland and is used to produce 35 Hereford and Angus beef cattle. A wildlife and bird enthusiast all his life, Paul is passionate about nature conservation and managing habitats on his farm. Over the years he has planted trees on the land, managed hedgerows for birds, incorporated wildflower margins around field boundaries and increased the nature corridors where possible on the farm. The land is home to many bird species, many of whom are becoming scare in the Irish countryside. There are barn owls, stock doves, swifts, ravens, buzzards, reed buntings, yellowhammers, meadow pipits, stonechats, starlings, house sparrows and more. Foxes, stoats, shrews and rabbits are also a common sight on the farm. Paul is an advocate for an economically viable and productive farming system, that simultaneously protects farmland habitats and enhances biodiversity on Irish farms. “My whole mantra would be – you don’t have to manage a nature reserve, if every farmer did a little and did it properly, it would all add up and have an impact.” More information and a short film on Paul’s farm here. Ambassador since 2021
