ONE-MONTH-OLD baby barn owls on a farm in Chute have been tagged as part of an initiative to prevent their long-term decline.

The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has funded the project as part of their Countryside Stewardship Scheme at Zealand Farm and adjacent farmland to ensure barns owls can continue to live and breed successfully.

The main elements of this scheme are to establish 25 kilometers of grass margins as a hunting habitat for barn owls and a nesting habitat for grey partridge.

Since 1931 there has been a considerable decline in barn owls mainly due to there being less derelict farm buildings and more owls killed on the roads.

Farmer Jonathan Sykes has established three-hectare plots of wild bird seed mixture for overwintering farmland birds, four-hectare plots of pollen and nectar mixtures for insects and hedges to encourage stone curlew to breed. Wiltshire's barn owl conservation network advisor, Major Nigel Lewis, tagged the young barn owls so they can keep track of where the owls are going, how far they have travelled and what shape they are in.

Usually the mother gives birth to five or six babies but in this nest on Zealand Farm only two chicks were found. Mr Sykes said: "The number of barn owls depends on the habitat available for their hunting grounds - particularly while the chicks are growing, as they can die of starvation if there is no food."

Research has shown that four hectares of rough grassland is required for successful breeding, it gives young more chance of fledging their nest successfully and adults surviving to breed again the following year.