Diet Of The Barn Owl 'Tyto Alba' Near Lake Frome In Arid South Australia

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of 56 whole pellets and fragments of approximately 200 pellets of the Barn Owl 'Tyto alba', collected in August 1981 from the arid pastoral zone of north-eastern South Australia. The owl's diet consisted of 67 per cent mammals (62% rodents), 3 per cent birds, 30 per cent lizards and less than 1 per cent insects by number, and 82 per cent mammals (74% rodents), 8 per cent birds, 10 per cent lizards and less than 1 per cent insects by biomass. The introduced House Mouse 'Mus domesticus' was the predominant mammal, and only rodent, recorded.