Friday 13 February 2015

100th Barn Owl box

HV13: barn owl box at Fawley
Today's barn owl box installation at Fawley makes it a century of barn owl boxes to be monitored by BBOG in 2015 !

Wednesday 11 February 2015

Owl boxes for Holtspur Bank Reserve

HW16: tawny owl box
With help from John Shaw of the Chiltern Rangers, today saw us putting up barn owl,  tawny owl, and kestrel boxes at Holtspur Bank Local Nature Reserve near Beaconsfield.
The boxes have been constructed by Les Davies, Chairman of the "Friends of Holtspur Bank", a local volunteer group.

Let's hope for some takers come the spring.




HW17: barn owl box
HW18: kestrel box

Friday 6 February 2015

Owl boxes for Hughenden Park

HW12: kestrel box
Thanks to the kind support of Andrew Kauffman and Paul Frost of Quadron Services, we were able to install a barn owl, kestrel and tawny owl box at Hughenden Park, High Wycombe today.


With all the surrounding good habitat we are hopeful of takers for these boxes.



  
HW11: tawny owl box
HW10: barn owl box
HW13: internal barn owl box










We then went on to install a home-made barn owl box inside a barn nearby in the Hughenden Valley.

Tuesday 3 February 2015

Tawny Owl boxes at Pullingshill Wood, Marlow

Box MC20: Pullingshill Wood
Today we installed two tawny owl boxes on Woodland Trust land at Pullingshill Wood, Marlow.
This site is contiguous with Marlow Common, managed by the Chiltern Society, where we have another four tawny owl boxes - one of which contained three chicks in 2014.
We will now be able to monitor a high proportion of the tawny owl population in this area.
 

Bracknell owl boxes

Bee-hive in little owl box
Another cold day yesterday saw Bob and Paul joined by Dan Carpenter, Biodiversity Officer for Bracknell Forest District Council, installing owl boxes north of Bracknell.
First a new barn owl box was put up at Pope's Meadow, where inspection of a little owl box revealed its change-of-use to a bee-hive!
Then two barn owl boxes at Easthampstead Park were cleared of squirrels and lowered to a more accessible height.
Next a dilapidated barn owl box at Moss End Farm that had been used by little owls for some years was replaced.
Finally a further barn owl box at Winkfield Row was cleared of squirrel drey, jackdaw and stock dove nests.
Our thanks go to Dan for his support of our Barn Owl Group.


 

Owl boxes west of Windsor

Barn owl box at Fifield
Last Saturday Carl, Karl and Paul spent a chilly but productive day putting up a barn owl and three little owl boxes west of Windsor: at Fifield; Holyport; and Touchen End.

We also inspected two existing barn owl boxes, one of which had held first a kestrel nest followed by a barn owl nest; the other was being used as a barn owl roost site.

A follow-up visit is planned to install further boxes in this area.