SNN (ScrollingNetworkNews) ✿ ✿ Our Mel and Sydney returned to their nesting box with plenty of bonding occurring..but after 2.5 months of Sydney in the box from Dec 2013 to mid Feb 2014, the lack of prey gifts from Mel ( perhaps due to the severe and historic drought underway in California)and they have forgone the nesting process this year as many other raptors ✿ Compared to other owls of similar size, the Barn Owl has a much higher metabolic rate, requiring relatively more food. Pound for pound, Barn Owls consume more rodents – often regarded as pests by humans – than possibly any other creature. ✿ We remind viewers that sometimes owlets may not survive - the parents will dispose of things in "The Owl Way" -viewer discretion is advised, this is nature and the "Owl way". ✿ ~ ✿ “Animals, like us, are living souls. They are not things. They are not objects. Neither are they human. Yet they mourn. They love. They dance. They suffer. They know the peaks and chasms of being.” ― Gary Kowalski, The Souls of Animals ✿ Each species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius." ~ E.O. Wilson

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Nesting boxes


Where do I put the nest boxes? 
Put them up wherever it is convenient for you. They can go in trees, on posts in the field or yard, on the wall of a building. Each site has positive and negative points. In trees, the owls will receive some protection from the elements, but the young will be exposed to predators. On a post, the young will be protected from most predators, but the box may get hot during a heat wave. On a building, whatever is below the box will probably get splattered with fecal matter.

  Where should I NOT put the nest boxes? 
 Do not put the boxes above locations where vehicles or equipment is parked. Outside your bedroom window is not a good idea either, because the young owls can compete very noisily each time the adults return to the nest with food. In Great Horned Owl habitat, that is, in heavily wooded, riparian regions, Great Horns are the largest predator of the barn owl. Place them in the middle of your worst rodent-infested area. Owls prefer not to hunt in the area of their nesting box so as not to attract the attention of potential predators. Multiple nest boxes in this vicinity will solve this problem because the hunting areas of the different nest

The short saga of the first mounting of Barn Owl nesting boxes at the Illinois Beach State Park in an effort to restore the presence of Barn Owls in Lake County Illinois.