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| {{Template:Positioning and mounting your owl box}} | | {{Template:Positioning and mounting your owl box}} |
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| =====Owls are territorial, but...=====
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| As with most birds of prey, barn owls are territorial so nesting boxes should be placed at least 200 metres apart; with the following exception...
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| Last year we took part in an [https://www.churchfarmstowbardolph.co.uk/activity/nature-walks/ evening nature walk with Nigel, a local gamekeeper from Church Farms, Stow Bardolph]. He has 50 years experience so knows a few things about barn owls.
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| After Nigel told us how owls are strongly territorial, we mentioned that we had put a second owl box up in the same copse, only 15 metres away from the original box and thought we would need to remove it. He said that we had inadvertently done our nesting parents a favour by adding a second box. The parents will have somewhere to escape to when the young fledglings start becoming noisy and boisterous! Since learning this, we've often seen the parents visiting the second owl box!
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| Even so, we eventually had to remove the second box because its position in the trees meant we could not [[#Protecting_the_Owl_Box_from_Predators|protect it from cats]] in the same manner we had with the first box. The way the trees were so close together meant that a cat could easily jump from one tree to another to access the box.
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| ===How we discovered we had barn owls!=== | | ===How we discovered we had barn owls!=== |