TAWNY OWL STUDY

Tawny owl "brancher"

Its long been an idea of mine to carry out a study on Tawny Owls here in Kintyre to compliment the already long running Barn owl study that has been in existence in one form or another since 1995. With that in mind my son Daniel and I have recently been in the process of placing 10 new Tawny Owl boxes in known territories around south Kintyre. Initially it is intended to guage how quickly and easily the Tawny owls take to nest boxes that have been sited in known territories, this will also give an indication of population size (at least in the Campbeltown area to begin with). It has already been well established that these birds do frequently use man made boxes but I would like to see this in action myself before expanding the area of the study and increasing the number of boxes available.
 It will also be of interest to compare the breeding success of Tawny owls on a year to year basis with the Barn owl. The Tawny owl diet is not as reliant on the population fluctuations of the Short Tailed Vole as the Barn Owls, with the Barn Owl in studies showing that the field vole made up 45.8% of its diet compared with 13.6% in the Tawny owl. However the study will hopefully reveal what unique factors the Tawnys face that determine a successful (or not) breeding season. Progress and other news relating to this study will be posted on this blog.

Final attachments fitted to a new box

New box in place

Also took opportunity to put up a new Barn owl box