The Ashy-faced Owls have bred, not once, but twice this year.

The first two babies hatched were a boy and a girl, then four months another boy was hatched. This was so impressive that it was reported in the International Owl Society magazine for September 2008.

The second hatching was not reported as the magazine had already gone to press but I have given you an excerpt of the article as reported in the magazine as follows:

Ashy-faced Owls prey primarily on small mammals and birds, but also hunt tree frogs and lizards. The population of these owls is declining, largely due to habitat loss, which in turn is a consequence of the rapid growth of the Dominican Republic’s human population from less than 2.5 million in 1950 to over 8 million just half a century later.

The Ashy-faced Owl is more dependent on forests than the somewhat larger Barn Owl; as a result, deforestation has benefited the Barn Owl at the expense of the Ashy-faced Owl.

The Ashy-faced Owl was first bred in captivity in Germany about 17 years ago. In 1997 the Dominican National Zoo (ZOODOM) and the Society for Conservation and Research of Owls (SCRO) signed an agreement to cooperate on a breeding project for the conservation of this species in the Dominican Republic.

In March 2001, two chicks were hatched in captivity for the first time in the Americas, and seven additional chicks have been hatched since.

The Screech Owl Sanctuary in Cornwall, England, is celebrating the first breeding at the centre of the rare Ashy-faced Owl from the Dominican Republic. Two healthy chicks at two weeks old were taken from the nest in mid May and are doing well.

The birds which are yet unsexed are hoped to be girls so the sanctuary can pair up some of their lonely males and continue their breeding program.

The Ashy-faced Owl (Tyto Glaucops) is slightly larger in size to the British Barn Owl, with an overall more golden body and a distinctly ashy-grey facial disc.

For around nine years the owl sanctuary has had three males (Autumn, Woodie and Fernando) and has been desperately looking for a female to pair one of them up with. In 2006, the sanctuary finally managed to get hold of a young unrelated pair (Ash and Spring) and hoped for the best.

The female was laying but the male seemed uninterested. So the decision was made to swap the young male with a mere mature male. So the lucky male, Woodie, was selected to go in with the female Spring in early January.

Now, these males have never had female company before, and are nine years old, so the staff were laughing about a three-way struggle to get into the box and to be the chosen owl to get himself a lady. They seemed to get on well and on April 2 a first egg was laid, followed by a second on April 4.

We then made sure the birds were not disturbed and we all crossed our fingers hoping for fertile eggs. The eggs would take around 36 days to incubate, so a nervous wait would ensue. Then with great delight the first noise of a baby was heard on that precise date and we knew we had at least one baby.

As much as we are good at rearing babies we decided to let Mum look after them as they generally do a lot better job than us humans. We were still worried though, as these two birds are completely new parents, and had never reared babies before. A lot of mice were put in during the day and night to ensure these babies had enough good food to eat.

These two weeks were the longest of my life, but she did a good job and we found we had two very healthy chicks which we hand reared to a point, and then creche-reared until adulthood. This is so they don’t imprint and humanise so we can breed from them in the future. One of these babies, a male called Ceniza, is now on public display for educational purposes at the sanctuary.

As you have just read from the above paragraphs, the sanctuary has made a large contribution to the continued existence of this very rare owl. With the hatching of a female this year, and the excess males held at the sanctuary, we will hopefully have two breeding pairs next year.

This project can now grow with our contribution.