The Lincolnshire Bird Club

I've just got back from my second visit to the study site near Binbrook. This year, 7 boxes were occupied by Barn Owls and we ringed 2 broods of 5, 1 brood of 4 and 3 broods of 2 as well as one adult female. We also ringed 1 brood of 4 Kestrels. Despite the harsh winter, they have had a better than average year at the study site where the Project is now in its' eighth year.

Stuart, Your study area seems to be better than most areas in the county. Of 70 broods ringed so far, we have had none of five, and only a handfull of four, several threes but mostly twos and ones. Brood sizes seem to increase the further north you go in Lincs and we suspect that the small brood sizes are as a result of the heavy snowfall earlier in the year and the length of time that the snow cover lasted, resulting in the adults being out of condition.

Cheers,

Alan

Hi Stuart

Does your study area get into TF29 as there is no confirmed breeding in that square yet. If not can you get some boxes up in TF29 this winter please

Hi Phil,
Sorry, can't oblige (I've explained in a Private Message). I wouldn't be at all surprised if Adrian Blackburn doesn't monitor boxes in TF29.

Sorry Phil, I can't confirm breeding in square TF29 either.

Just to illustrate how good Stuart's study area is this year, Bob Sheppard and I have not encountered any broods of 5 chicks this year. So far we have ringed 102 broods (average only 2.4 chicks per brood), with 18 failed attempts and another 73 pairs still either on eggs or small chicks, and another few areas still to check.

Alan

Sadly, our big broods may not all have survived. We had a healthy brood of five which were too young to ring three weeks ago. When we went on Saturday there were only two dead well grown chicks . I can only assume they suffered with the food shortage caused by restricted hunting in the wet and windy weather. On the plus side I checked 2 broods of 2 three weeks after ringing and they were fine. I suspect that there were very few successful broods of two or more.

I have been informed that two almost fully fledged chicks were found dead under a box where we ringed 5 healthy chicks a month early. This tends to confirm Alan's suspicions that there was a major problem, possibly weather related, for the adults in finding food for their broods a couple of weeks before fledging. Anyone else suffered the same experience?