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