In a year when Barn Owls in Wiltshire have generally struggled, due to a lack of voles and other small rodents early in the year, I am relatively happy with what we have found in the Braydon Forest. We had seven successful nests, compared with nine in 2024. Where the key difference is, is in the number of youngsters fledged. In 2024 we had 31 youngsters fledge: three broods of five, four broods of three and two broods of two. This year we had one brood of four, four broods of three, one brood of two and one brood of one, totalling 19 youngsters.
It is clear that the impact has been in the number of eggs laid: restricted by the availability of food. Indeed, we only found one addled egg, although that nest did lose two eggs between first and second visits, when we ringed the three young that had been too small to ring first time round.
This morning I was joined by Miranda and we did final checks on the productive boxes, to check the young had fledged and to clean them out, and for Miranda to collect pellets for the Malmesbury & District Natural History Society to investigate at a later date.
Anyway, my most regular box, Home Farm Barn, did not produce any young this year, but the one over the other side of the road from it, at Echo Lodge Farm, for only the second time, did produce a brood of two. We cleaned it out this morning, accompanied by a dozen sheep, most of whom seemed to be male, and none of whom were bothered by our presence. In fact, we had to persuade them to get out of the way, as they were far too comfortable sitting around the base of the tree with the box in. Certainly not used to sheep being so unconcerned about human presence: makes me think they are more pets than farmed.
The second box we checked this morning was the one with the eggs that didn’t hatch, we did find one of those addled eggs. Unfortunately, it blew as I pulled it out of the box: OMG, the stench was horrific!
Anyway, Miranda ended up with loads of pellets for her natural history group, and we were very happy to find that every brood had fledged!
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 