The following report has been compiled by Justine Hadfield of the Salisbury Plain Raptor Ringing Group. Justine became a C-permit trainee with me at the beginning of the year when Nigel Lewis, her trainer and the individual responsible for setting up the SPPRG, retired from ringing. She and Mark Fisher, who has now joined me as a T-permit trainee, have worked hard to manage the boxes on the sites adjacent to these three rivers. This is her report:
This year is my 5th year with the owl group, and my first leading the ‘off plain’ team, which covers the Wylye, Till and Nadder Valleys. Myself and Mark Fisher have helped Nigel Lewis with this area for the last two years, so I was hopeful that I would know at least some of the area. It’s been rather a large learning curve, having to learn how the various recording systems worked, both internal and that used by the British Trust for Ornithology: still a work in progress!
Our checks started in early April, and it appeared that although it had been a wet spring, the fact that it had been relatively warm seemed to work in favour of the birds. Most of the boxes we checked in the first few weeks….kestrel, little owl and tawny owl, had full clutches of eggs, or near full. We put that down to a plentiful supply of voles.
We only have a few tawny owl boxes off plain, with three healthy young birds found in one box. This turned out to actually have four young, one having already fledged ahead of its smaller siblings. One barn owl box which had housed a tawny for a few years, had the correct barn owl inhabitant this year, wonder where the tawny ended up!
Little owls have not fared well at all this year. We have five boxes, and all have been successful previously…not so this year. Only one had four healthy young, and I have since heard and seen these youngsters flying and calling. Two other boxes only had one and two chicks, and the final two boxes had three young each predated. Very sad indeed considering Little Owls are in decline in the UK.
Kestrels appear to have done very well, with most boxes having full, or near full broods…so fives and sixes of healthy young…kestrels do seem to make very good parents. Once again, I’ve seen a few families of youngsters hunting and flying in their box areas.
Finally, barn owls. The apparent good vole year (unless you are a vole) seems to have provided a good food source for the birds, with broods doing well, most boxes having three or more young. One box had seven young, but when we went back to ring them, only three had survived…one large chick had walked out of the box and fallen to his death…the box has now been replaced with a Lewis design box which minimizes the risk of this with an internal corridor. On average we have had broods of three and four young, with some fives, and a wonderfully healthy six….the youngest of which is still returning to the box, where a camera is installed, several weeks after fledging.
This year we have had reports of drowned barn owls, found in water troughs on farms. On investigation, it turns out that this is the second biggest killer of barn owls. There is a project promoted by the Barn Owl Trust, to advise landowners how to make floats for the troughs that are within a couple of hundred yards of owl boxes. I have taken this on as project to promote this to farmers and landowners. We have made some floats, done a talk to a farmers cluster meeting, and sent emails to DIO to forward to farmers on Salisbury Plain, as well as emailed information to other landowners who have contacted me re found dead owls in their water troughs.
While this year has certainly been a challenge, Mark and I have enjoyed the work we have done, and are very proud to be carrying on the work Nigel has done over the previous forty years.
The following are the results of our efforts this year (with some second brood Barn Owls to be processed next week).
Barn Owls: 154 ringed, from 47 boxes. This averages out at 3.27 per box. There was a brood of 7, one of 6 but mostly 4’s and 3’s with a couple of 2’s and 1’s.
Little Owls: Only 7 ringed from 3 boxes. An average of 2.33 per box. Two regular boxes had their young predated, and two boxes had fewer young than in previous years.
Kestrels: 70 birds ringed from 14 boxes. An average of 5 per box, most boxes had 6’s and 5’s with one 4 and one box with 1.
Tawny Owls: 5 birds from 2 boxes, average of 2.5 per box. We only have a couple of Tawny sites…and one Barn Owl box that has been used for several years by a Tawny, has reverted to Barn Owl use this year.
Justine Hadfield
As well as her hard work on checking and managing the owl boxes, Justine has been working with the local farmers / landowners to try and reduce Barn Owl mortality from drowning. Unfortunately, Barn Owls are attracted to cattle troughs to bathe, after being stuck in the nest box with the young. (If you have ever seen the inside of a Barn Owl nest box you would want to bathe as well!) They get in and cannot get out again. Justine is working to get floating platforms installed in those troughs as a preventative measure and, so far, has had a very positive response. Justine did a talk to the farmers’ cluster group. They have sent out information to their members and are already building floats for deployment.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 