They’re famed for binocular vision and sensitive hearing.

Now owls need your eyes and ears! The Wild Watch urgently needs you to help protect our precious owls!

How you can help!

We need your help to find out how many owls we have and where they live in Nidderdale AONB.

Listen for owl calls or sightings and share your findings with us by emailing [email protected], subject line ‘Owl Watch’.

Tell us:

• which species you’ve seen or heard
• the date, time and where you saw or heard it (by either grid reference using gridreferencefinder.com or your postcode)
• your email address so we can confirm your sighting

We’re collecting data on four owl species:

Barn owl: 
A distinctive white, heart-shaped face and a slow, buoyant flight in a back and forth motion. You can see them all year round, during the day, but best at dusk in open country, field edges, riverbanks, roadside verges.

Tawny owl: 
You can hear and spot Tawny Owls all year round, primarily in areas with woodland or mature trees. Their flight is more direct, often from tree to tree.

Little owl: 
The smallest owl, which can be spotted all year round, often in daylight usually perching on a tree branch, telegraph pole or rock.

Short eared owl: 
A mottled pale brown owl with a rounded face, yellow eyes and short, often indiscernible ear tufts.  You can spot them hunting during the day, more widely in winter, by their characteristic buoyant flight in a back and forth motion. Often spotted in farmland, moorland and wetland habitats.

Watch this video to learn more about Barn, Tawny and Little owls.

What happens to your records?

Your record is added to our owl database and the data at the end of the survey will be explored in the use of habitat suitability modelling to see in which habitats owls are choosing to live. This in turn will inform conservation management planning.

We will send on our data to the British Trust for Ornithology, North and East Yorkshire Ecological Data Centre and public National Biodiversity Network. This means all the records received will be included in national databases to be used by future researchers and conservationists aiming to understand the conservation status and distribution of owls in Nidderdale AONB.

So, rest assured that the data collected will be put to maximum use and will build up a baseline of owl records in the area which will be used when making future decisions affecting our wildlife and environment.

See the results so far