It’s been a busy old January, on the Peregrine front you have the breeding and licence period fast approaching, and small/medium boxes need checking and cleaning out in January ready for spring.
On a local site which has 10 small Boxes, 8 of the boxes were occupied with nests, this is the site that also has a Little Owl Box and 2 Kestrel boxes. The small boxes were all cleaned out, we then moved onto the Little Owl Box, this produced 2 Owlets in 2023 so hopes are high again for this year.
As ever though, the bloody Squirrels have other ideas for the box, on checking it we found a Drey inside + a Grey Squirrel! This came out at a rate of knots and the Drey was dismantled, if you recall this is not the first time this has happened with Squirrels.
The only way I have found to alter their mindset is to consistently – pre breeding, turf them out until they give up as a bad idea, so far it has worked although it is time consuming.
Moving on from the Little Owl Box, we checked the first of the 2 Kestrel Boxes, this had obviously had something in it, not a Kestrel but a few pellets and guano, pointed towards a nocturnal rooster.
The 2nd Kestrel Box was very interesting, something was using it, again nocturnally as it had over a dozen pellets inside. Very chunky, they looked very good for Tawny’s rather than Barn, which I see fairly often.
A light bulb went off, so on Saturday morning February 3rd we changed Nest boxes.
I had a Tawny Box made, so we swapped them over, as above the Squirrels may be an issue but hoping that if the Tawny’s take a shine to it, they will keep them out. Watch this space!
Blue/Great Tit
Bloody Squirrel
Kestrel Box down with Tawny Box in background
Hopefully irresistible!
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