While doing spring maintenance on the three owl houses, we found a screech owl nesting in the northern most house! It took some time, but we FINALLY had success. The purpose of putting up the owl houses was to introduce a natural based solution to the garden's vole problem. As screech owls are predators of voles, our newest resident will help us control this problem. Upon walking the area, we found owl pellets, indicating the owl has been successful at hunting in the area near the garden. Our next step is to adjust the camera settings to capture more activity....stay tuned!
Last Friday we checked on the houses, and in one of the owl ones there is a nest of European starlings. This is along with a nest in the American Kestrel house. Although the birds aren't what we were hoping for, we will let them stay for now because we aren't sure if they have laid eggs yet and just out of respect for the birds.