Tyto alba
Silhouette: Sharon Wegner-Larsen · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5%
The western barn owl (Tyto alba) is a species of barn owl native to Europe, southwestern Asia, and Africa. It was formerly considered a subspecies group together with barn owls native to other parts of the world, but this classification was found to be paraphyletic with respect to some other members of the genus.
The plumage on the head and back is a mottled shade of grey or brown; that on the underparts varies from white to brown and is sometimes speckled with dark markings. The facial disc is characteristically large and heart-shaped, with white plumage in most subspecies. This owl does not hoot, but utters an eerie, drawn-out screech.
The western barn owl is nocturnal over most of its range, but in Great Britain, it also hunts by day. Barn owls specialise in hunting animals on the ground, and nearly all of their food consists of small mammals, which they locate by sound, their hearing being very acute. The owls usually mate for life unless one of the pair is killed, whereupon a new pair bond may be formed. Breeding takes place at varying times of the year, according to the locality, with a clutch of eggs, averaging about four in number, being laid in a nest in a hollow tree, old building, or fissure in a cliff. The female does all the incubation, and relies on the male to hunt for food. When large numbers of small prey are readily available, barn owl populations can expand rapidly, and globally the barn owl is listed Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. Some subspecies with restricted ranges are more threatened. Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | N'Djamena | 🇹🇩 Chad | |
| 2 | Freetown | 🇸🇱 Sierra Leone | |
| 3 | Abidjan | 🇨🇮 Côte d'Ivoire | |
| 4 | Antananarivo | 🇲🇬 Madagascar | |
| 5 | Cairo | 🇪🇬 Egypt | |
| 6 | Manchester | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 7 | Harare | 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe | |
| 8 | Kampala | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 9 | Porto | 🇵🇹 Portugal | |
| 10 | Johannesburg | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Common Barn-Owl sighting in Lisbon on a given day, based on 44 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 139th most-seen of the 186 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, if each day is a fresh chance.
Any time of year
In every month with enough records, under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Common Barn-Owl in Lisbon on a given day, so our monthly data shows no clear season.
Between 8 and 11 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Common Barn-Owl sightings with a recorded time, and about half of them come between 6 pm and 6 am: it is seen both by day and at night.
11th of 14
Of the 14 cities where we can rate Common Barn-Owl sightings, Lisbon ranks 11th at under 5%. The best odds are in N'Djamena (Chad, about 10%), Freetown (Sierra Leone, about 10%) and Abidjan (Côte d'Ivoire, about 10%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Common Barn-Owl is recorded against all the birds logged in Lisbon (44 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
