A little surprise...

Despite our best efforts, Little Owls are hard to come by in this neck of the woods. So I was delighted to find a pair roosting in a small hole in an organic orchard where I was working today.

Over the past few years we've put up over 20 Little Owl boxes at sites where we know that they still exist. Although several of the boxes have had Little Owls roosting in them, none of the owls have used the boxes to rear a brood. Lets hope this year things will change so we can ring the chicks and hopefully monitor their dispersal and try to understand why their numbers are declining in this area so much!!