Barn Owl Monitoring Programme (BOMP)

Licensed volunteers visited and monitored potential barn owl nest sites during the breeding season from 2000 to 2009. Thank you to all who participated and contributed to the data we collected.

Barn Owl by Matt Hazleton — Barn Owl. Matt Hazleton

The Barn Owl Monitoring Programme (BOMP) was a survey designed to determine site occupancy rate and breeding success of Barn Owls by having licensed volunteers visit and monitor potential nest sites during the breeding season. It ran from 2000 to 2009.

Read the final report: The BTO Barn Owl Monitoring Programme 2000–2009

The Barn Owl is a very special species, a much-loved icon of the struggle between wildlife and agricultural changes in the UK. Numbers have plummeted since the 1930s, but in recent years, many people in the countryside—landowners, farmers, conservationists and birdwatchers—have invested a great deal of money, time and energy in an attempt to reverse this population decline.

Fortunately, Barn Owls take very readily to nestboxes in the UK. As a result, the number of nestboxes put up for them has mushroomed. Following the Barn Owl declines noted during the Hawk Trust national survey in 1982-85, the number of nestboxes has risen from around 6,000 to approximately 25,000 in the mid-1990s. Barn Owl groups have been established throughout the UK, many as part of the Barn Owl Conservation Network, which aims to increase Barn Owl numbers from 4,000 to 6,000 pairs by 2012.

One of the recommendations to come out of the national survey

Project Barn Owl

Project Barn Owl (PDF, 92.17 KB)

in 1995-97 was the need for an annual Barn Owl monitoring programme. Many Barn Owl workers already submitted data from the sites that they monitored to the Nest Record Scheme. However, there was still a great deal of local information not reaching the national scheme and, until recently, no information was being gathered on nestbox occupancy rates (ie changes in the numbers of Barn Owls that attempt to breed each year).

BOMP aimed to plug this gap. Over the 10 years the survey ran, it gathered additional information about Barn Owl breeding activity and enabled us to find out more about Barn Owl population dynamics.

More about the survey

Reports, papers and other publications generated from the survey may be found on the BOMP results pages, including a final report.

You can also read an overview of the BOMP methodology and more about the interesting history of Barn Owl monitoring in the UK.

Learn about owls

Find out more about owls, from owl vision and hearing to tips on identifying calls.

Informing best practice for Barn Owls

Read about BTO research which reveals optimal Barn Owl conservation measures in the context of HS2.

Barn Owls in 2020: An update from Colin Shawyer

Barn Owl Conservation Network founder and coordinator writes about the 2020 breeding season for owls.

BTO Data Reports

Our reports provide rigorous scientific information to inform Environmental Impact Assessments in the UK.

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