My advice ? if you have a Western Screech-owl (WESO) in your neighborhood, it does no harm to put up a box. At worst, it will be used by starlings.



For several years I had WESO nesting in a box behind my house on Bainbridge. WESO take to boxes readily.



WESO are in serious decline in many parts of Washington, mostly due to Barred Owl predation. On Bainbridge, fifteen years ago I could find WESO at a dozen locations. It has been over a year now since I last had a WESO on Bainbridge, though I have at least 27 pairs of Barred Owls here.



If WESO are to exist, they need to either adapt to the Barred Owl (BDOW) invasion, or breed in a BDOW free zone. The best habitat going for WESO that I can tell are the small, isolated parks that are too small for a BDOW to utilize, but large enough to support a pair of WESO. This is one potential benefit of small city parks; areas that would normally be thought of as a population dump may be of significant importance to WESO.



J. Acker

Bainbridge Island, WA

<mailto:Owler at sounddsl.com> Owler at sounddsl.com



A voice unspoken (or unwritten) is a voice unheard.

Be heard!



From: tweeters-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu [mailto:tweeters-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of notcalm at comcast.net
Sent: Saturday, December 18, 2010 2:21 PM
To: Tweeters
Subject: [Tweeters] Western Screech Owl Nesting boxes- what advice,experience or stories do you have?- Thanks from Dan Reiff



Have any of you installed a nest box for Western Screech Owls? I would like to put one in our back yard, but do not know what the consequences would be to our large resident population of birds.



For about a year and a half we had a male in our neighborhood on Mercer Island. He called for long periods each night for much of that time from about 250- 600 feet away. I did not hear a second owl. I wondered if he never found a mate and finally vacated the area.



I found the sounds of that call to be very beautiful and would often listen for a while outside, in the silence of the night, before going to sleep. So, I want to invite one or more back.



Any advice, experience or stories would be appreciated.



Dan Reiff

Mercer Island