The Magnificent Seven

Over the last two days Emily (from the Hawk & Owl Trust) and I have been owl 'n' about checking to see if we could detect any signs of breeding activity at any of my little owl locations including the sites where I have erected the 21 nest boxes.

We found hen birds incubating their clutches of eggs at 8 different locations, six natural sites and can you believe it............also in two of my boxes!!!!!! To have little owls convert to my nest boxes so soon was just fabulous and especially rewarding considering all the hard work that has gone into making and erecting them.

Both the nest box sites have 3 eggs each........so far! The statistics for the natural locations was as follows; 4 different sites with 3 eggs each, 3 sites with 4 eggs each and a mighty 7 eggs at 1 site! We were both amazed at the 7 eggs and Emily said in all the hundreds and hundreds of little owl sites she had previously checked 6 was the maximum she had ever encountered and that was only on two previous occasions.

Emily can be seen here checking out the 7 egg site, and further below is an image from that site of the clutch of eggs, unfortunately not all 7 can be seen!

Emily can be seen in this image up a tree again (I think she must of had training from Tarzan!) checking out one of the natural sites with her "See Snake Camera" (endoscope). It proved to be an invaluable piece of equipment as it allowed us to look deep inside some of the cavities, the breeding activity would never have been confirmed at four of the sites without it!

A clutch of four eggs at one of the natural sites.

Just to point out that Emily is fully trained in gathering little owl data in this particular fashion and at no point did we knowingly cause any undue stress to the birds. We worked swiftly, quietly and at all times the birds welfare was of paramount importance.

Unfortunately we did have a triple whammy of bad fortune during the two days, firstly at one site we saw a stoat coming out of one of the natural nest sites, and yes you have guessed it........no owl or eggs!!!! Secondly, at another natural nest site we found two eggs, oh you would think that to be good news wouldn't you, but no not in this case as they were light brown in colouration with black speckles! Any ideas??? Jackdaws had evicted the little owls and taken over.......dam!!!!!! And thirdly whilst checking out some sites over at Enderby we were inundated with sight seers that caused total grid lock of the local roads!!!!! No it wasn't because they had heard Emily was visiting, they had come to watch the local re-cycling plant being raised to the ground as it went up like an inferno!

By Royal Appointment.

Over the last two days we have been very honoured that the "Little Owl Queen" has been residing in Leicestershire (better known to her loyal subjects as Emily Joachim star of the BBC's The One Show!!!!!!).

Emily who is doing a PHD  on the demise of the little owl was up in Leicestershire for the weekend to meet with myself and Ken Goodrich from LROS. We were planning to discuss my little owl project and to see if Emily could offer any help or advise on its progression. On Saturday morning it was over to Ken's house for a very relaxed chat and a light lunch, I have to say that the banquet that Mrs Goodrich put on would have been fitting for a King let alone a Queen!!! (thank you Mrs Goodrich).

One of the main outcomes of the meeting was an agreement that a nest box scheme is required that will hopefully enable me to provide the BTO with some vital and factual information about the owls here in Leicestershire. Ken has organised some funding through LROS for the purchase of the required materials for 20 boxes and I will then be burning the midnight oil assembling them in the evenings, little bit of a rush though as time is against us if we want to try and position them in time for the oncoming breeding season.

On Sunday the three of us were joined by Ken's good friend Dave Robins for a field trip out to investigate some likely looking areas for the nest box locations. Whilst out I was hoping to show the guys some owls, luckily the weather wasn't too bad and things looked promising? We met up at 9.30am at the Navigation Public House near to Kilby Bridge and returned some 4 or so hours later after driving round in a loop with-in the SP59 area. The result at the end of the day was some really promising locations for the nest boxes and a very respectable 16 different little owl sightings, I was especially pleased with these numbers as I had concerns over possible fatalities during the recent cold snap.

 

 Ken Goodrich, Emily Joachim and Dave Robins

Leicestershire - The promised land?

Several months ago (around sept '09) the BBC's "THE ONE SHOW" had a short film article about the demise of the little owl in the UK. It featured a lady called Emily Joachim who was doing a PHD out of Reading university on behalf of the Hawk and Owl trust. Although a very interesting article I was compelled to contacrt Emily as my little owl survey in Leicestershire seemed to be bucking the UK trend.  I explained what I had been doing over the previous 13 months or so and that here in Leicestershire there seemed to be a very healthy population. I explained that at that time I had located around 75 different little owl sites, Emily expressed a great interest in my findings and this weekend she is finally making the trip up to Leicestershire for our first meeting. I am hoping that we can help each other with our individual surveys and also come to an understanding on why Leicestershire seems to be the centre of the earth as far as little owls are concerned!;-)