Helping the Owls

Since 2008

A few years ago, Paul Riddle and I took on the challenge of boosting the Owl population in south Leicestershire. This followed a successful Little Owl venture, which Paul took on by himself initially in 2008, with me joining him later. Paul has a nest disturbance and monitoring licence issued by the BTO, so in 2011 we decided to concentrate on Barn Owls

After trying different boxes, we now think we have cracked it by using recycled plastic barrels. We design, make, install, monitor and maintain them.

They have been successful and produced lots of young Barn and Tawny Owls and, with a different design of box, we have also had Kestrels breeding.

We don’t check all the boxes every year (there are far too many now), but when we do find chicks, they are ringed by us in the presence of our mentor, Michael Townsend. All the data collected is then forwarded to the BTO and LROS