Owl nests

After the past two days rescuing the baby GHOs shown below, it seems to me that this would be a good time to mention owl nests. With the exception of the two ground nesters, Snowy and Short-eared, no owl builds a nest. They borrow either a cavity that is already in a tree, a hollow at the top of a broken off dead tree, or use an abandoned redtail hawk or magpie nest. Sometimes even a ledge in an old barn or cliff. The only one that may cause trouble is the magpie nest as they can only use it when the roof caves in which may take as long as a few years depending on how well it is made.

If you are a rancher or farmer with a rodent problem, the best bird to have on your place is a great horned owl as their diet is made up of lots of small furry things. The only way they will take up residence is if there is already a nest in one of the large old trees on the place. There is, however, a way to build one for them. They don't use nest boxes but open nests. Here are the directions....

Take a 4' square of 1/2" hardware cloth and the same size felt or tar paper. Find the exact center and cut a slit from there to one corner. Make a shallow cone shape by overlapping the cut edges, put the two together with the wire on the bottom and fasten the whole thing high up in the tree where a large branch comes off the trunk. Fill that cone with large bark pieces then a variety of branches doing your best to weave them into a solid base. Then sit back and hope the GHOs think you're a good nest builder and set up housekeeping.

For the smaller owls a nest box can be built and placed in the right place on a tree but be sure to put a few inches of pine shavings in the bottom. Remember, the owls won't bring nest material to the box, it has to be there ahead of them. Never, never use cedar shavings in a bird nest. You can use dried grass but never, never use straw or hay. Directions for these small owl boxes can be found on the internet by just Googling the owl species and add nest box in the search box. Use quotation marks around the request to narrow the search to just what you want.