Lewis Raptor and Owl Group

Lewis Raptor and Owl Group A page to cover the work of the group covering the Wylye, Till and Nadder Valleys.

Yesterday was a day of boxes….Mark making them and me painting the preservative on. These images also show why our boxes...
28/05/2026

Yesterday was a day of boxes….Mark making them and me painting the preservative on. These images also show why our boxes are better than most ‘off the shelf’ ones. The barn owl box has an internal built in corridor. This makes it harder for jackdaws to take over with their pesky sticks…and the young owls have be be big enough to fly up and negotiate corridor to the door way, minimizing the chances of them falling out when small.

A very busy day, lots of boxes to recheck after finding eggs previously. Kestrel chicks have finally hatched, an amazing...
05/05/2026

A very busy day, lots of boxes to recheck after finding eggs previously. Kestrel chicks have finally hatched, an amazing 9 young barn owls, a couple of 5’s, but sadly, the regular little owl box that had mum and eggs earlier this season had been taken over by flipping bees…no sign of mum. The harsh reality, and as it’s a box and bird I am very fond of, I have to admit I did have a bit of a cry over it….we do get attached to the birds we look after.

Yesterday I finally got to start the box check project on a glorious 5,000 acre estate on the Dorset border. We started ...
30/04/2026

Yesterday I finally got to start the box check project on a glorious 5,000 acre estate on the Dorset border. We started to check boxes I had on my inherited spreadsheets ..10 boxes, that hadn’t been checked for several years. There was a meeting last year to discuss updating the details, and we headed out yesterday. As happens on these large estates, several new boxes had gone up and old ones had fallen down. Now I begin the task of coordinating with the estate to get everything updated, to form a cohesive list of boxes. No doubt new boxes will replace old old ones and repairs carried out. We did find three broods of barn owl young, so a good result on a lovely afternoon.

Another fab start to a large order for local farm cluster group. Mark has been super focused making barn owl boxes today...
23/04/2026

Another fab start to a large order for local farm cluster group. Mark has been super focused making barn owl boxes today…our box maker extraordinaire. On the other side of things, I’ve done all the data entry for this week’s checks and planned the next lot of checks….not as creative or satisfying as box making 😍

Wednesday afternoon box checks, when Mark and I cover boxes that are a bit out of the way , and separate from our most c...
23/04/2026

Wednesday afternoon box checks, when Mark and I cover boxes that are a bit out of the way , and separate from our most covered areas. A joy to find all the owls on eggs and with small chicks….and a tawny sitting tight.

Evening 🙂 Another Tuesday another day checking owl boxes. A good day to find 17 young, and about the same from those box...
21/04/2026

Evening 🙂 Another Tuesday another day checking owl boxes. A good day to find 17 young, and about the same from those boxes in eggs. Kestrels are looking a bit slower to lay this year😕 I did get to ring my first owls of the year…two fluff ball tawnies. Also we got to spend time with some adorable newborn, rare breed lambs….always a joy! 😊

Some of our sites are a bit out on a limb when it comes to route planning, so Mark and I are doing ones like that on a W...
15/04/2026

Some of our sites are a bit out on a limb when it comes to route planning, so Mark and I are doing ones like that on a Wednesday afternoon. Was a very surprising day….two new tawny families, but one in a kestrel box and the other in a barn owl box….they do not respect the box types we make for them 😅 The chicks were between one day and a week old….removed so we could take old jackdaw sticks from the boxes….jackdaws can be a pain 😕 We will pop back in a couple of weeks to ring the tawnies and see how the barn owls are doing. The gamekeeper at one site put up a little owl box….what a suprise and delight to find a little owl in there already!

Natural rodent control….who needs pesticides when you have an owl? One box had 7 rats and one had 13 mice…..
14/04/2026

Natural rodent control….who needs pesticides when you have an owl? One box had 7 rats and one had 13 mice…..

Day three of ‘owl duties’, and what a day it was! Over 40 barn owl eggs with clutches of 8, 7, 6’s and 5’s found! We cle...
14/04/2026

Day three of ‘owl duties’, and what a day it was! Over 40 barn owl eggs with clutches of 8, 7, 6’s and 5’s found! We cleared out a box of jackdaw sticks that the owl had laid her eggs on…this means the young now have room to grow…if we hadn’t, they would have probably died. Mark also repaired an old box where the floor had come away…it will be ok for this season now. As I say, it’s not all about the ringing.

This week saw us start box checks…with slight trepidation knowing how poor last year was. I can’t actually get my head a...
11/04/2026

This week saw us start box checks…with slight trepidation knowing how poor last year was. I can’t actually get my head around this weeks results! A total of 55 barn owl eggs and 2 chicks, 10 kestrel eggs, 2 tawny eggs and two chicks and two little owl eggs! On the barn owl front, that’s more in one week than we had the whole of last year! If the weather stays fine, not too cold, not too wet….and small mammals do well….it could be a bumper year. Please keep everything crossed! Please note….all our work is carried out under BTO regulations and relevant licences and permits.

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Warminster

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