Barn Owls love rough grassland so as you can imagine we have some good Barn Owl territories within the parish.  While our Barn owl populations are secure they do not have many (if any) natural nesting sites left and they are dependent upon the provision of nest boxes to breed.  Aldbourne Wildlife have been busy making an putting up Barn Owl boxes in barns within the parish to encourage our local owls to breed.  We have also reached out to local landowners - many of whom have already been helping these beautiful birds by putting boxes in their barns and trees.

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Barn owls are schedule one so a special license is required to disturb the nest.  We have this license and Matt has a lot of experience monitoring barn owl boxes.  We will be monitoring as many boxes as we can and ringing the chicks (and any adults we are lucky enough to catch) so that they can be individually identified in the future.  Barn Owls are one of the most studied nesting species in the UK and we know that the birds are almost totally unaffected by nest box monitoring and ringing when done in the correct way.

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If you have a barn in or around Aldourne parish and would be interested in a free Barn Owl box, or if you already have a box and would like it monitored, or if you have some land and would like advice on where to source and site a tree box please do not hesitate to get in touch as we would be more than happy to help out.

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We look forward to replacing this picture of one of our boxes with a picture of some owlets in the coming months - stay tuned!