The Lincolnshire Bird Club

It's been a good start to the owl season so far in 2011. It’s a record year for Little Owls having located 50 pairs in Bob Sheppard’s boxes already, with another half dozen or so regularly used boxes still to visit ! It also appears to be a record Tawny Owl year in south Lincs with more boxes than ever occupied and including one brood of four and several fledging 3.

Our initial thoughts were that Barn Owls would not be too badly affected by the severe winter weather at the end of 2010, but it would appear that although it looks like it could be a good year in the south of the county, things do not look particularly good in the north of Lincolnshire .

Alan

Spot on about the north of the county, Alan. I checked the 22 boxes on my study site near Binbrook today and only two were occupied, 1 with four eggs and the other with five recently hatched young. This is by far the worst occupancy rate since I started checking them in 2003. There was only 1 occupied by Kestrels instead of the usual three.
Stuart

Stuart,
Definitely a north/south split regarding owl survival over the cold winter in Lincolnshire. We've just checked the Fortyfoot Drain polebox scheme (this longest running pole-box scheme started in 1987) and with 12 pairs of Barn Owls this equals our best ever year.
Bob has managed to get 60 pairs of Little Owls in boxes this year - most fledging around now. Unfortunately we lost two broods due to hive bee swarms moving in - the adult seemed to escape from one, but the other adult was stung to death in what looked like a pretty vicious attack.

Alan

Alan et al.

Any, clues/reasoning or thought's why this happens!!

Most of the time they seem to co-exist, quite happily with a bit of give and take on both sides?

From my experience they do not appear to be prey species for each other or is it just wrong place, wrong time!! at a site which fulfills all the right criteria or urge to continue/achieve the best for the species.

Thought's wanted by all no matter how frivolous they may seem!!

Let us for a change, try to get a discussion going on this thread, which might pique an interest from more of the scientifically minded members who travel the world doing things we ENJOY as a Hobby/Life or pastime.

Head above the parapet again is me!!

Brian.

Ps. I do not want to extend the thread deliberately on the point of just Birds, like us all, I have an interest in the Natural World that surrounds US and wish to extend our understanding of it.