Remember my discussion about the mouse plague?

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They talk about swings and roundabouts, and ups are followed by downs and vice versa. Some of you may remember I wrote about a mouse plague in our wheatbelt area. This was not the sort of plague that could be managed with traps or extra cats. There were so many mice everywhere that driving down the road was like driving on bubble-wrap. Anything in supermarkets packaged in cardboard was being eaten by mice. However, there is an upside in that, because of the amount of mice available, barn owls are raising many more chicks than normal. One resident said her research had said that a mother owl needs to feed each chick five mice a night for ten weeks, by which time I guess the fledglings start catching their own. Some owls are nesting in artificial nests created for Barnaby’s cockatoos which have finished nesting at the moment. Another factor that might account for an increase in owl numbers in recent years is the drop in the use of owl-killing rodenticides. Whatever the reason, it’s nice to see more barn owls around. The photo is mine.