Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 17:20:01 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Lynn & Hal 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 wrote: > > > 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? Yes, we've had Screech Owls breeding in our backyard for 13 years (and this year, for the first time, we have a gray one, which happens to be the male. The female has been on eggs for probably about 2 weeks already - seems fairly early this year). It will really help with the squirrel problem to put at least one box on a pole with a baffle just far enough from trees that the squirrels can't jump to it. The owls can probably handle squirrels under the right circumstances, but this will give the owls a "leg up" on them. We've placed our boxes with the holes facing east or east-southeast. They sit in the hole and bask in the early morning light. We have had as many as 4 boxes in the yard (one for each tree and one on the pole). They are about 10-15 feet high. Norm is right about putting some finely-ground wood chips or sawdust or hamster shavings (owls don't seem too picky) in the bottom to keep the eggs from rolling around. And if squirrels should decide to move in, you need to be vigilant and evict both them and the leaf nests they make. Good Luck ! Lynn Davidson Arnold, Anne Arundel County, MD hal.lynn@erols.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================