Hi and welcome to my Blog, my name is Paul Riddle and I live in south Leicestershire, UK. Back in August 2007 my quest began to locate as many local Little Owl territories as possible. The driving force was a reported decline in the uk numbers so I thought I would do my bit and conduct a study in my area. After 7 years and countless hours out in the field I have detected over 200 different sites. With a thirst for a greater understanding of the owls a more comprehensive monitoring and nest box programme then commenced. This also now includes monitoring the local and very sparse population of Barn Owls, please pop back occasionally and catch up with the life and times of my owls and any other wildlife that I come across. I hope you enjoy your visit!!!

Saturday 6 March 2010

Boxed Out

This morning’s fine weather allowed some time to complete the overdue task of putting up the final 3 little owl nest boxes. That’s 21 in total and everyone has been put up in areas where little owls are already in the locality, it’s going to be difficult getting them to relocate especially as the boxes have gone up so near to the start of the breeding season, but you never know what may happen??????

The first box of the day was put up in this ash tree at a site near to Ashby Magna, it produced two juveniles last year but unfortunately one of them met an untimely ending when it was in collision with a passing car!
 
Site 55, Ashby Magna - Gwens Gorse.

Whilst driving over the fields to erect the second box at Cosby we inadvertently spooked the resident pair out of the nest tree, this image was attained just before they left.

Site 35, Cosby - Cosby Lodge Farm

The third box of the day was put up at site 58, Lower Brookhill Farm over at Peatling Magna, unfortunately due to technical reasons no image is available (forgot to take a photo!!).

The final task of the day was to return to a site where a box had already been put up..........but not to my satisfaction. I was not happy with its first position being too low on the tree so it had to come down and go back up in a higher.


2 comments:

  1. He's enough to frighten any bird away!!

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  2. Well done Paul! Great news. Just in time for me to make a report at the committee meeting on Monday

    Ken

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