Little Owl Nestbox

We've been talking about this bird for al long time.... the little owl (steenuil)

Previous kenderfrau posts here

On Saturday bird ringing Noord-Limburg placed a special nestbox in our tree

Thank you Patrick!

This is supposed to be a marten proof nestbox...

We spotted martens in de back garden several times.

Once I saw two youngsters chasing each other at dusk ☺︎

Just a little pruning by the kenderman to ensure a free flight path.

Immediately small birds like blue tits and coal tits investigated the new nestbox.

Now we just have to wait for a couple of little owls to discover it...

Never Enough

We already had quite a few nest boxes...

You can my earlier posts here:  

bird pot, dormouse, dormouse boxes, 

great-tit, great-tit, leaving the nest, nestboxes,

common swift, bee boxes and nest box recycled material

but there's enough space left for a couple more...

We've added several common starling bird pots... the opening is 45 mm

the one with the smaller opening (35 mm) is a sparrow pot

new "terra potta" on the side, weathered wooden swift boxes on the front facade...

Fully Booked

pictures by the kenderman.

Right now all of our nestboxes are occupied.

We have 3 nests of great tits and 1 blue tits nest.

The great tits are nesting in a swift's nestbox and a tree-creeper's nestbox.

Within a couple of weeks we'll be expanding with 4 nestboxes for swifts.
And finally we will build our own little owl nestbox. 

Nest Boxes

Finally the dormouse nest boxes are placed in our garden.

One is attached to the trunk of our pollard Black Alder at the end of our mixed hedgerow.

The other one is hanging in front of our wooded bank. Raspberry as well as Blackberry are nearby.

You can read about these boxes and the dormouse in my previous post here.

Walk

Dormouse

We read an article about the dormouse. You can hear about them here.

The habitat they need is exactly like the back of our garden.

For a moment we thought of making some nest boxes ourselves.

But nahhhhhh......instead we bought two nest boxes on the internet :-)

They arrived so now we have a little project hanging these in our garden.

Making sure the hole of the nest box is facing the trunk or pole.

Nest Boxes

These nest boxes were in our shed for 3 years!!!
It's a box for a Northern Wren (winterkoning) and a
nestbox for a Short-toed Treecreeper (boomkruiper).

At last we found a spot for them.

Leaving the Nest

On monday the youngsters (Great tits) flew out of the nest.

This is how the nest box was left behind.......quite greasy :-))

Great Tit

 In out barn we have a nest of Great Tits (aka Parus Major).

But these birds are extremely cautious!

They leave as soon as they see us or Sil close to the nest and they won't fly to the nest

box until we're gone.

This year they are using the nest box on the left.

In the autum, after they've gone, I clean the boxes with boiling water and some soda.

Hoping to see them again next spring!

Nestbox

Don't get fooled!!!

These houses may look like bird's nest boxes but they are solitary bee houses.

We hung these posh looking houses a few days ago.

I wonder when we will have some inhabitants.