Estate Blog - Owls - July 2024

Deene Park welcomed back our Ecological Consultant Jo earlier in the year who carries out an annual check on our owl boxes.  We have a total of 16 owl boxes throughout the Estate which have maintained a steady population of owls over the last few years.

This year Jo was able to report a healthy population of adult owls, two boxes contained Barn Owl chicks and another had two Tawny Owl chicks.  Sadly Jo found a deceased Barn Owl that had been ringed previously and so she was able to research more information.  Interestingly she was a three year old that had been ringed as a chick in Sparsholt, Oxfordshire and therefore must have travelled 116km to join us here at Deene.  This is highly unusual for a Barn Owl to travel such a distance, so it was very sad to hear that she hadn’t survived.

Jo had also recorded a male in May that had been ringed previously, and he had paired up with a young female.  He was also three years old and had been ringed as a chick by the Rockingham Forest ringing group in Southwick, just a few miles away.  Hopefully this pair will rear young in the future.

We look forward to another successful year for the owl population, in the meantime we have some maintenance to do on our boxes and we shall continue to discourage the Jackdaws from taking residence.