Following on from my visit to the Warminster area to check on various raptor nest boxes, today I started out on checking the boxes that we have in the north, mainly in or around the Braydon Forest. I was joined for the morning by Laura.
I arranged to check the boxes at Blakehill Farm, Ravensroost Meadows and Somerford Farm. We didn’t get to all of the planned boxes: but those that we did get to were very encouraging. Interestingly, they are several weeks behind the birds and nests that were visited on Tuesday. None of the nest boxes visited today had young that were old enough to ring. In fact, each box that had nests had a mix of very young, altricial chicks and unhatched eggs.
Last year was a quite disastrous year for Barn Owls in the Forest. We only had 12 successful youngsters survive the season from 5 nest boxes. There was an awful lot of brood cannibalism: which left us with three broods of two and two broods of three. That probably underlines the problem: a lack of rodents. Two of my usually most productive sites produced zero Barn Owl nests, let alone chicks. One box had a roosting adult when visited but no sign of a breeding attempt, two had been taken over by Grey Squirrels and two by Jackdaws – so we did get to ring eight Jackdaw chicks, but that is no compensation. We checked on close to 30 boxes for that paltry return.
I met Laura at the Whitworth Building at Blakehill Farm at 9:00 and we checked on our first box, situated in Poucher’s Field. There was no breeding attempted there last year and in the year before it had been used as a roost for adult birds. We never did find where they were actually nesting that year. Before that it was a regular, successful breeding site. One of the reasons we didn’t get to as many boxes as we would have liked was, quite simply, access. All of the boxes that we visited today are usually accessible by vehicle. Today most of them weren’t. That meant a lot of ladder carrying and “just in case” equipment carrying and, after a day of yomping around the Wylye Valley on Tuesday, my arthritic right ankle decided when it had done enough for the day.
Anyway, I pitched the ladder across the pond that has formed around the base of the tree in which the box is situated, and went to open up. As I did so, the female flew off from the back of the nest box. A bit of a red flag: the entrance hole is at the front. Anyway, once I opened the box I was delighted to find five very small owlets. Two had eyes open, three were still eyes shut and there were also another two eggs, hopefully ready to hatch. It looks as though we might have a good sized brood there this year. One of the really good things about it: there was a larder of four mice in the box. Hopefully that means that it is going to be a good year for mice and voles and, therefore, a good year for the owls. The box will need replacing over the winter, as the back has cracked and the edges are rotting away.
As ever, it is horrifying just how filthy the conditions are inside a Barn Owl box. When these are big enough to ring I will clean out the box and give them some nice, dry, clean wood shavings to sit on. (That’s “sit on”, but I am sure they will do the other thing as well!)
If that was a nice surprise, the next box in the hedgerow between Allotment field and ROC field was definitely more of a surprise. Firstly, the old dilapidated, roof falling off, commandeered by Jackdaws, box has been replaced with an excellent, brand new box. Even better, as we approached two adults flew off. When I opened the box I found a nest cup with one egg in it, plus several dead mice around it. However, I also located another two eggs in different parts of the box. The problem being that, despite the box being very new, Jackdaws had already filled the nest cavity with sticks. I spend the next ten minutes carefully removing all of the Jackdaw’s hard work and returning the box to the condition it ought to have been in. I hope the Barn Owls like it. The only Barn Owl successfully ringed from that box was a roosting male caught the first time we checked it in 2018. Since then it has been empty of Barn Owls, but we have ringed two broods of Jackdaw in that box.
This is how it looked after I had cleared away a sizeable chunk of the Jackdaw material. The rest will get done when we go back to ring them.
From there we headed off to the Ravensroost complex. We couldn’t get into Avis Meadows, where there are two boxes, because the gate padlock was seized up and I didn’t have my handy can of WD40 in the car. So we went over the road to the other meadows. The first box was looking good: the female flew off as we set up the ladder and spent the rest of the time that we were at the nest quartering the field, looking for prey no doubt. She had four very young, naked, eyes barely open chicks and two eggs in the nest. For the absence of doubt, I should emphasise that we ae at the nest for as long as it takes to get the ladder up, open the box, see what’s there, close the box, take down the ladder and push off.
The second box in that meadow area is usually where we find Stock Doves nesting. Unfortunately, this year there is no sign, yet, of anything attempting to use that box for breeding. Our next stop was at Somerford Farm. The owner, David Fitzherbert, is a keen conservationist. He has been extremely helpful in getting local farmers to buy into Jonny Cooper’s Braydon Forest Curlew project. His land is mainly rented out apart from a significant acreage in front of his house, which is left more or less fallow, as a wildflower meadow, and which has proven a successful breeding area for Lapwing in the past. He also makes his own owl boxes – and they are classy. The first one we visited today is south of Somerford Common, in a big old barn. In the four years that I have had access to his boxes, it has never had anything in it. Even last year a Stock Dove decided to nest in the rafters of the barn, rather than use the box. I said to Laura as we drew up that, if it was empty again this year, I was going to recommend moving it to a different location. As I went up the ladder two adults flew off. When I opened the box there were three eggs inside. I did a bit of cleaning out because it clearly had been used over the winter and there was a lot of muck in there. Anyway, another positive sign: there were already mice being stored in there by the parent birds!
Our next box is along a back lane that leads to a shooting copse. It is one of the easiest to get to and rarely disappoints. Only last year it was taken over by Grey Squirrel and there was no sign of Barn Owl activity. I removed the drey at the end of the breeding season last year and delighted to say that we have Barn Owls back in residence. Again, two adults flew off as we approached. Inside the box we found three newly-hatched chicks and three eggs. The three newly-hatched were about to become four, because we could hear another youngster making noises and its egg was cracking around the middle.
The last box we checked is a Little Owl box. It has been in situ for two previous seasons, where it has not been occupied. This year we found it filled with bedding material, but I suspect it was of rodent rather than bird origin. That was our last visit of the day. We finished at 12:15, I ran Laura back to Blakehill Farm to pick up her car, and then headed home.
I am pleased with the session: with 12 young, 13 eggs and the possibility of quite a few more, in the first six Barn Owl boxes checked plus the fact that every box with eggs or young already has a larder of rodents available for feeding the young!
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 