Prospects for barn owls in the National Park are looking up following the installation of 20 new nest boxes thanks to the National Park Authority’s Natural Heritage Grant Scheme. The scheme, which is also supported by SNH, has awarded £3438 to local barn owl enthusiast Mike Steward which has enabled him to identify suitable new nest sites south of Loch Lomond with the help of landowners in the area.

 

Barn owls are a heavily protected species and although there is plenty of foraging habitat in the National Park they struggle to find nest sites, so increasing the number of suitable barn owl nest sites has been identified as a priority in the National Park’s Biodiversity Action Plan.  Mike explains:

 

“Barn owls need a good supply of field voles which live in long, tussocky grassland, but good safe nest sites are increasingly hard to find.  Traditionally barn owls nest in old buildings or hollow trees but many old buildings are being re-developed and hollow trees have a limited life span.”

 

Mike’s project has addressed this problem by installing twenty custom built nest boxes, ten of which have gone into buildings and ten into trees.  All the sites have been carefully selected to ensure that each new residence has good hunting ground close by.

 

 

 

As the nest boxes have been put up over the winter there is a chance that some may be used for breeding in 2009.  Mike is licensed by Scottish Natural Heritage to ring barn owl chicks and will return over the summer hoping that the new homes have proved attractive.

 

Adam Samson, National Park Ranger, said: “Similar projects in central Scotland run by the Forestry Commission and other local environmental groups have been very successful, so over the coming months and years we can hopefully look forward to increased opportunities to catch a glimpse of this iconic and much loved bird.”

 

If you regularly see barn owls within the National Park, know of nest sites, or would like to do your bit to help this species, please contact National Park Ranger Adam Samson on 01389 722102.

 

ENDS//

For further information on the Natural Heritage Grant Scheme click here.

For further information on the National Park Biodiversity Action Plan click here.