Nature features

It's too early for national nest-box data to be compiled and released, but evidence from local monitoring by John Black, and the British Trust for Ornithology, suggests that birds of prey, that rely on small mammal prey, have had very poor breeding success. John says,

"Generally the number of breeding attempts have been similar to previous years, but the number of nest failures so far have been significantly higher than usual.

According to John the number of nesting barn owls have been the same as last year but again the number of surviving chicks is about 50% lower, with five or six eggs hatching but only two or three fledging due to larger chicks eating the smaller chicks (recycling) due to lack of available food.

Kestrels

It's a similar story for kestrels, where breeding attempts have been on a par with previous years but success is about 50% lower. Those figures are based on a small local sample, and hopefully may not be reflected nationally.

Population dynamics and breeding success is a very complex subject, with cyclical changes in numbers of prey species being followed by boom or bust years for predators such as owls and hawks, and you have to look at a long term trend to judge the health of the population. John says,

"What we don't know is how small mammal populations are being affected by climate change, and if numbers of small mammals continue to be reduced, then owls and kestrels are likely to suffer even greater decline.

"Great efforts have been made to replace lost breeding habitat with nest boxes in recent years, but if the mice decline the birds of prey are in great danger."