Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 18:35:16 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Norman Saunders Subject: Re: Need advice on next boxes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Marian Dodson writes: > A friend has graciously made me a couple Screech Owl boxes. Can anyone offer > advice, i.e. height, direction to face, on how to best hang them? Ehrlich, Dobkin, & Wheye in the Birder's Handbook describe E. Screech-Owl habitat as: "Open woodland, deciduous forest, parks, towns, scrub, riparian habitats." In other words, with a proper cavity or nest box, they will nest just about anywhere. From the same source, nest height ranges between 15 and 50 feet off the ground. I have a feeling that if a pair of screech owls move into your boxes, they will take care of the squirrel problem all by themselves. Oh, I understand owl boxes need to have a good bed of sawdust. I wonder if wood shavings (like you buy for hamsters) would do as well? Any ideas from anyone? I know Hal Wierenga and Lynn Davidson have had successful screech owl nesting in their Arnold backyard for a number of years and as I recall, their nest boxes weren't terribly high off the the ground, more on the order of 8-10 feet. I've had nest boxes up for a number of years with no success, but then my yard backs onto an extensive woodland area--I seem to be suffering from an excess of good natural screech owl habitat. Maybe the less "natural" your area is the more likely nest boxes will attract? Norm Saunders Colesville, Montgomery County, MD marshhawk@att.net ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================