Big boxes on the Lizard

Stuck in the middle of the usual winter storms, our winter mist-netting has been rather limited, so we've been occupying ourselves with our big nestbox projects. Thanks to funding from Paradise Park in Hayle, we've been able to start replacing old and siting new Barn Owl nestboxes around the county. This winter we've only put up eight new boxes, but with requests for boxes still coming this is just the start! This does take the number of sites we monitor up to 84 though, so it's going to be a busy summer...

Most of the boxes are being sited in large open barns in areas where we know Barn Owls frequent, so we're hopeful that take-up will be quite high. Below are just a couple of examples of the boxes we've put up, and you can see that this isn't always a simple procedure!

As an aside from the Barn Owls, we've also just started a project to put up Kestrel nestboxes, as many of the sites we visit have the potential to hold both species. This is a bit of a new thing for us, with the first Kestrel box going up at a farm on the Lizard yesterday. Unlike Barn Owls, Kestrels really do like a room with a view, so the box below is in the perfect location!

We know it looks wonky, but it's the photo - honest!