Barn Owl nest box cameras

Over the winter we have been installing cameras into some of our regularly used Barn Owl boxes. There are now 7 boxes with cameras installed. The miniature cameras are equipped with infra-red LED's for capturing black and white images in the dark.

The cameras will allow a more complete monitoring of Barn Owl nests through the breeding cycle.

Roosting Barn Owl

The photo shows a screen-shot of a roosting Barn Owl at one of our boxes on a National Trust site.










 

 

National Trust owl boxes

Barn Owl (female)

With great help from Head Ranger Neil Harris, and Rangers Jerry Page, Matt Shrimpton and Steve Kirkpatrick, we have added further Barn Owl and Tawny Owl boxes to the existing Barn Owl and Kestrel boxes at National Trust sites in the Chilterns Countryside, West Wycombe and Hughenden areas.


One box contained a roosting pair of Barn Owls, and we were able to ring the female shown in the photo.


We also fitted a camera to one of the Barn Owl boxes to facilitate monitoring of any nesting activity this year.
 

BBOWT Barn Owl boxes

Woolley Firs barn owl box

A further Barn Owl box was installed at BBOWT Woolley Firs last week.

The box had been kindly donated to BBOWT, and reserve manager Dan Akam and volunteers Sam and Stuart installed a pine pole we could attach it to.

We also visited BBOWT Chawridge Bank SSSI, to clear out squirrels from two Barn Owl boxes there, and to relocate the boxes more favourably.