Owl Visitor

This week I got a lovely owl visitor who stayed around my garden for a couple of days as I believe he was disorientated and taking a breather.

The below is a photograph of the nearby deserted pump house that he calls home, unfortunately the landowner and some of his friends, spent a morning burning nearby thorny bushes and the smoke and noise of the men frightened the owl away from its home.

This is one of the entrances/exits to his home which I'm sure is shared by lots of other birds - all-in-all quite a nice little residence.

Sadly for me but happily for the owl, after a couple of days everything had settled down nicely and he went back to his upmarket home. But it got me thinking about owl boxes and how easy it is to make them a very nice residence (as in the below photograph).

And also below a drawing showing the plan for a simple do-it-yourself owl box.



On further investigation found some interesting links about bird boxes:

A comprehensive guide on how to build birdhouses and nest boxes for many avian species.

To learn how to build nest boxes from off-the-shelf materials, this site illustrates some several creative ways to build boxes for barn owls from drums and boxes.

You can buy Bio-Diversity’s Construction guides (at a modest charge) for barn owls and kestrels. There are suggestions for location, equipment needed and step-by-step instructions.