Barn Owl update

I’ve just spent the last 3 days checking Barn Owl boxes in east Lincs. It looks like a much later season than last year when birds had complete clutches by early April. This year maybe half had started laying or had complete clutches, some were just paired up and I suspect other regular sites have yet to be used. However, a 12 year old retrap male was a nice find. Anyway, based on this, I’m not going to be checking local boxes until the first half of June. 

 

The lateness is most likely down to be down to lack of food:

• lots of reports of birds hunting in the daytime
• some breeding females being underweight
• no voles to be found in sort of owl box as yet

Jim