discussion Owl nesting box Success - of sorts ...

[Peter Gillson]

3 years ago we had to have a tree removed and rather than completely removed we had it pollarded to a bit over 3 mtrs high so that my son and I could fix an owl nesting box with a camera inside on top of tree.

First year: nothing,
Last year: nothing
This year: sucess a nest with eggs:

View attachment 387390

unfortunately, the common small headed, small eyed owl - aka wood pigeon! At least its being used.

View attachment 387391

Peter

 

[Lee W]

3 years ago we had to have a tree removed and rather than completely removed we had it pollarded to a bit over 3 mtrs high so that my son and I could fix an owl nesting box with a camera inside on top of tree.

First year: nothing,
Last year: nothing
This year: sucess a nest with eggs:

View attachment 387390

unfortunately, the common small headed, small eyed owl - aka wood pigeon! At least its being used.

View attachment 387391

Peter

Something is better than nothing Peter. Well done mate

Lee

 

[Guest]

You might like this:

It’s in Dutch, but I suspect you’ll get the gist of it just from the pictures

 

[Ian M]

Well those pesky pidgeons always come back to the same nest year after year so you will have plenty of visitors in the coming years.
We had a pair set up home in our garden. Now three years on we have garden full of the bugers!

 

[stillp]

I put up a nest box for blue tits a few years ago. Every spring since they've had a look at it then gone elsewhere. This year though we have two nests - both in the eaves of the house!
Pete

 

[yak face]

I put up a nest box for blue tits a few years ago. Every spring since they've had a look at it then gone elsewhere. This year though we have two nests - both in the eaves of the house!
Pete

Me too Pete , all I’ve had in my box for the last three years is bees !

 

[stillp]

Me too Pete , all I’ve had in my box for the last three years is bees !

I made three hedgehog boxes. One was used to raise a brood of four hoglets. One has remained empty. The other is crammed full of bees.
Pete

 

[Guest]

Still nice to have wildlife in the garden Peter though our wood pigeons and collared doves make a hell of a row on the conservatory roof, and start very early in the morning.

 

[Peter Gillson]

Lee - you are quite right - nice it is being used.
jakko - what an amazing video, that guy is so lucky!
Ian - we already had pigeons in one evergreen oak and a weeping willow, hopefully it is one of those rather than a new pair.
Peter I know the feeling, we have a couple of other nest boxes for tits, one with a camera and one without. No prizes for guessing which one is used every year!
Tony - some species of bumble bees seem to particularly like next boxes.
Pete - snap, we built 3 hedgehog homes and only one has been used.
Peter - I suppose we are lucky the pigeons keep away from the Conservatory roof They do make a noise though.

Peter

 

[Dave Ward]

Peter,
where I live is Owl heaven - I see a Barn Owl fairly regularly, and I hear Little Owls, Long Eared Owls & Tawny Owls on a nightly basis. ( I had to visit the RSPB website to identify the Little & Long Eared calls ). There are occasional exotic visitors that I can't always identify - Slimbridge WWT is just down the road. Wood Pigeons? Loads, & they always seem to sit above my living room window and coo on, and on, and on.............. Occasionally I see piles of feathers where something has got one of them! ( probably a fox ).
I'm still keeping an eye out for the Black Panther - it's been seen regularly in the area, and my camera is always ready to hand......................
Dave

 

[Peter Gillson]

Dave - lucky you, I am green with envy.

we are on the edge of owl country so putting up the box was more hope than expectation. If we had not had anything in it this year we were going to add a smaller box for a kestral.

peter

 

[Guest]

what an amazing video, that guy is so lucky!

In the video he says he at first thought it was pigeons, and that he doesn’t like them. Then he discovered what had really been making the noise outside his window They’re eagle-owls, by the way.

 

[Dave Ward]

We get Fallow & Muntjac deer, as well, but in 30 odd years of living in the area, I've actually seen them twice! - I've seen their foot slots many times, but how such a comparatively large animal can stay out of sight is amazing. When I used to go to work ( 06:30 ) I used to see the local badgers & rabbits, but now I've retired, I only hear the screech of rabbits being preyed on - usually foxes, but I've seen stoats, so they may be responsible. There aren't many cats locally, so the smaller songbirds are undisturbed, finches, tits & wrens are common visitors. I hear Green Woodpeckers, but the most common sight ( apart from the pigeons ) are the Jackdaws
Dave

 

[Tim Marlow]

Most common for me is house sparrows, sometimes thirty plus at a time.....we also get loads of finches and titwillow. In the autumn we have had over a hundred in the garden At once. We also get pied and grey wagtails, many corvids and magpies. We have Also had black caps, sparrow hawks, red kite, buzzard, Redwing and field fare. Fly overs include swallows, geese, heron, and others....We don’t get many pigeons, just a few along with some collared doves, but there probably isn’t enough free air for them to fly in
As to nest boxes, I put up five when we moved in and only one is in use by a blue tit family....Maybe next year....

 

[Guest]

As for owls, I've seen Little Owls quite often during the daytime, and they call at night regularly. I stood and looked at one about ten feet away for around ten minutes once - he/she seemed as interested in me as I was in him/her:

View attachment 387459

(Not my photo).

Lovely little birds, not much bigger than a blackbird.

 

[rtfoe]

I live near a river so I get to see herons and cranes. There are the occassional kingfishers. I swear these birds have been picking off my fish in the water lilly urns.
Nice that you Peter to have waited so patiently for the new occupants.

Cheers,
Richard

 

[Guest]

We have a Robin nest box, which has been used each year since I put it up. A Wood Pigeon is nesting just out side the door into the garden.
As for Red Kites we are lucky, see one every day on his route over our houses, they are common here now in Lincs.
Reading Richards post above reminds me that we often have a visit from a Heron, but the pond is netted so he soon clears off.

 

[wotan]

We live in the wilds of Quebec so we get all sorts of visitors in our garden. So much so in fact that I have a permanent game warden keeping order.



John

 

[Fernando N]

Nice to see it being used Peter, living in a mostly urban area I just have a Magpie couple in the trees across the bedroom window, makes a good alarm clock too in the weekends:smiling5:

But in the small woods just within a mile from me, Buzzards and the Falcon live to be seen, most impressive to see the former leaving a tree each time I come to close during running