Wildlife and general news blog about the Retreat and its environment

Distinguishing male and female barn owls is difficult from afar, and can still be difficult when closer.

Typically males are a bit smaller than females. Looking at the two photos of our pair taken at the same time, with the male on the left, female on the right, the one closest to the camera on the first photo (taken from the left) looks slightly larger. In the second photo (taken from the right) they look almost identical in size. This means that in our case, for our current pair, and as in previous years the male is larger than the female which is unusual.

The is male is typically paler than the female, but that is not always so and in this pair the male (on the left) is only slightly paler. e.g. look at the cheek colouring.

Small black spots on the thighs and underwing are more common in females and few or absent in males. It isn't obvious in this view but the male (on the left) has no such white spots, and the female (on the right) has some but not as many as may often occur in females.

The third photo shows our female on another day, revealing some black spots on her flank. This is a quite variable feature. Some male barn owls have more spots than this, and some females have many more spots.

The Barn Owl Trust has photo galleries showing how to sex barn owls. There are other differences which may sometimes help to distinguish them, e.g. the background on the tail feathers may be paler in males.