I spent today out on the Salisbury Plain Training Area with the Salisbury Plain Raptor Group. I met with Dick and Jon, stalwarts of the group, with one of our new trainees, Mark, at Westdown Camp, on the edge of SPTA. A civilised start, at 8:15.
We mounted up in the 4×4 pickup and headed off to see what we could find. To be honest, everything is running late, but we were hopeful of finding signs of breeding. The decision was made not to disturb any Barn Owls that were not on nest when Dick and Jon did their previous check on these boxes in mid-April. Like my own boxes in the north of the county, there are signs of occupancy but no signs of egg-laying. The plan was to check those Barn Owl boxes that had been on the nest then, to see how far they had come.
We were also going to be checking some Tawny Owl and Kestrel boxes, to see how they were faring. Tawny Owls, in particular, breed earlier than most other raptors. In the event the only ringing we did today was of a single Tawny Owl chick:
Despite being still very downy, its feathers are developing quickly, its primary wing feathers are at medium length, and it is likely to leave the nest box quite soon. Its sibling has already left the nest and was moving around in the tree above the box. Mum was also in attendance, showing her displeasure. Another Tawny Owl box showed signs that it had been occupied but that the young have already fledged and left the nest.
The rest was a mixed bag of results. Two of the boxes, one Barn and one Kestrel, were occupied by Jackdaws. One of them had five eggs and the other had three chicks. A couple of the other boxes showed that Jackdaws had been in occupancy: so they was cleaned out for Barn Owls and Kestrels to have a chance to breed later in the season. Another Barn Owl box held a pair of Stock Doves. Or, at least, a pair flew out as we drew up in the car. We didn’t disturb their nest.
A couple of the Barn Owl boxes did have adults in them, but not breeding yet, and three others had clutches of eggs in them: one of three and two of five.
We then found six active Kestrel boxes, five had eggs and one had young that was only a few days out of the egg. Interestingly though, you could hear the young making little high-pitched calls through the shells of the eggs in three of the clutches.
One box had lost its front and bottom when the branch it was resting on broke off from the tree. Jon spent fifteen minutes rebuilding it and ensuring that it was firmly fixed to the tree, without relying on any branch.
That was pretty much the end of the session: 18 boxes checked and one repaired in 5 hours driving around SPTA. What it told me is that Barn Owl breeding, in particular, is several weeks behind last year. It seems that this very dry May is preventing the grass from growing and vole numbers are well down. That ties in with the few of my boxes that I have checked so far this year: two pairs of Barn Owls occupying boxes but showing no sign of breeding yet.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 