Diets of Urban Breeding Barn Owls (Tyto alba) in Tel Aviv, Israel

摘要

Examination of 193 whole pellets and a number of partial pellets of a pair of Barn Owls (Tyto alba) in Neve Shiret, a neighborhood of Tel Aviv, Israel during the 2005 and 2006 breeding seasons revealed a total of 711 prey specimens. Six species of small mammals comprised 99.3% of the diet with a frequency of occurrence of 100% in pellets. Levant voles (Microtus socialis guentheri) (48.1%) and house mice (Mus musculus) (32.9%) were the most common prey species. The Barn Owl pair hunted in croplands adjacent to an urban residential area.