Barn Owl Boxes – Anyone built one and attracted an Owl?

Cheers Mr Moont – this one is hopefully for barn owls, it looks out over this

Which we know is pretty good for voles shrews and meeces so with any luck it’ll be occupied. We’ve got a tawny box at the far end of the woods at the bottom of the slope, it was occupied last year and they reared 1 chick. They’ve already been back this year (we have a trail camera monitoring it at the moment)

I tried to attract an owl into my garden a few years back with a box, and also playing the mating calls of a female owl over a speaker, but with no luck. In the end I got a visit from the Barn Owl Trust to inspect the location and give me some advice. Their conclusion was that the problem had been unseasonable weather with too much rainfall for them to consider pairing off and setting up in nesting boxes.

I never knew it could be too wet to woo.

Nice work from people but its much about the habitat and weather their is enough food to sustain a breeding pair.
Eg 7 voles and mice each a night

“I never knew it could be too wet to woo.”

LOL!

“applause”

I tried to attract an owl into my garden a few years back with a box, and also playing the mating calls of a female owl over a speaker, but with no luck. In the end I got a visit from the Barn Owl Trust to inspect the location and give me some advice. Their conclusion was that the problem had been unseasonable weather with too much rainfall for them to consider pairing off and setting up in nesting boxes.

I never knew it could be too wet to woo.

That deserves some kind of formal recognition, perhaps an OBE.

We’ve got tawnys back in the same box they were in last year, one definitely resident in the box and the other bringing mice and what looks like small birds in. No signs of occupation at the barn owl box though, but we don’t have a camera on that so you never know….

In a bid to make the landing approach a bit easier, I finished this holzhausen this morning.

This was the other night pre holzhausen with a nice sunset.

We’ve got a nest in our barn owl box!

A wasps nest 🙁

How big’s that hole in the box mcmoonter? looks a tad small from here. (North Yorkshire)

I used the plans from the barn owl trust website. Maybe Scottish owls are bigger?

So yesterday morning we found this on the ground under our owl box.

Gutted.

Oh no!

How sad.

so sad.  any idea of the cause?

No obvious injury and there was blood on the beak and talons so it might have eaten something that was poisoned – we’ve been in touch with the local wildlife place to see if there’s any use for a dead barn owl.

Oh that’s really sad. Let’s hope that it just died of old age….. all these birds have to die some time but you rarely see them.

Oh, that’s dreadful.

There was a piece in the paper the other day about owls eating mice and rats that had been killed using poison. The rodents eat the poison which is still poison when the owls eat them.

In a bid to make our box more appealing, I cut up shreds of woolly jumpers and popped them in the box. Last week a swatch of pink was lying below the box. Perhaps they didn’t like the colour, but I’m hopeful that there’s at least a butch Owl thinking of moving in.

That is always sad to see, re poisoning rodenticides  are often based on anti coagulants which cause internal bleeding to such a  degree the animal dies, as does any predator which consumes it. Blood on the beak may be evidence of this. Often the skin has a blue colour as the casualty has suffered massive internal bleeding. Its really shit the careless use of such poisons.

That’s horrible, when i used to commute bu bike last year to and from work here in West Norfolk, i used to have a barn owl that would regularly fly alongside pretty much, always braking off at the same field boundary, it did this for nearly 8 months, i then saw it dead in the road having been struck by a vehicle, normally things like that wash over me, but having to get up at 5am to cycle to work was bad enough and seeing the barn owl once or twice a week used to be a little lift.

On the flipside, the first time i met my wife’s aunt and uncle who run a big farm, i walked into their big kitchen and could feel eyes in the back of my head, i turned round to see a large barn owl in a peg bag hanging above the Aga, it had a broken wing and they put in their to restrict it and were nursing it back to health.

For info we’ve found the Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme who will send a prepaid box & specimen bag for you to send the owl/hawk to them.

http://pbms.ceh.ac.uk/

They’ll then investigate the cause of death and take some other samples from the bird, and let you know their findings if you choose.

We’ve got the post mortem results for the dead barn owl we found under the box.  Apparently a juvenile female, in decent condition but with haemmoraging of heart and lungs/respiratory tract.  I guess the good news is that it didn’t starve due to the cold weather so that means there’s enough prey for them in the local area.

Over the last 10 years, I must have made 50 or more for a mate in Scotland who works in forestry, only one has so far remained unoccupied, but, its only been sited for 18 months.

Bummer on two fronts – the dead owl; but also I see an owl thread and leap in to tell my shit owl joke only to find this is a thread resurrection and I’ve already told it. So, double sad 🙁

Shame theotherjohnv, this thread could do with two wits

Missed this thread. Sad news re the Barn Owl. such beautiful birds.

My parents have been putting up Barn Owl boxes all around Kent, they were even on BBC South East last week doing it and talking through the ins and outs of it all.

We’ve just put up a Tawny box, have a few around here. Although much quieter this year than last. I have been warned if checking a Tawny box to wear eye protection, as they are quite vicious! Apparently a famous naturalist lost an eye while checking a box.

mcmoonter – do you not have any short or long eared owls? I think Lothians/Stirling/Fife/Perthshire has a good few?

I used to love watching the short eared owls at work or on way home in summer evenings…

I have been warned if checking a Tawny box to wear eye protection

I’ve worn a chainsaw helmet when checking mine, but now have a £20 USB endoscope camera thingy that I can put on the end of a cane and check inside, plus you can grab shots of whatever’s in there while you’re at it.

Apparently a famous naturalist lost an eye while checking a box.

That will be my wife’s grandfather you’re thinking of there, Eric Hosking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hosking

A turning point in Hosking’s career came through an accident which happened on 12 May 1937. Returning to a tawny owl photographic hide late at night, he was struck in the face by the owl, its claw penetrating his left eye. The resulting infection meant choosing between losing one eye or probably going blind. The eye was removed and the ensuing publicity appeared in all the national newspapers, where his photographs were already in great demand. As soon as he was fit he returned to the hide to continue taking pictures.

My box is still unoccupied. We do have Tawny and Barn Owls nesting amongst my covered wood piles though

i stumbled across a dead mature Tawny Owl about a month ago on the margin between our woods and an open field. It looked pristine, no sign of any trauma. I wonder if has eaten something that had been poisoned.

We see owls regularly on fence posts on open farm land. They are harder to see  amongst our trees

Any mice or rats we catch in traps we pop on the wood shed roofs, they are never left there for long. Someone is keen on a ready meal

Im still optimistic that one will make a home in the box

i stumbled across a dead mature Tawny Owl about a month ago

If you find any more stick em in the freezer and contact the PBMS (linked above) who will send you a box to return it in.  They’ll investigate cause of death as they did for ours and send you a copy of the results.