The
project to encourage barn owls to breed at Alton inevitably
lead us to take a closer look at the local small mammal population
as these constitute the bulk of their diet. Using 60 Longworth
traps we only managed to capture a single water shrew over a
period of 3 days. Although it was fantastic to confirm the existence
of this important species it was disappointing that the potential
food supply for barn owls appeared to be at such a low level.In
an effort to boost the prey population a simple feeding station
for small mammals was designed using standard hollow concrete
blocks.
The intention was to provide a protected food supply over the
critical winter period that wouldn’t attract rats. By
so doing it was hoped that the population loss over the winter
would be reduced and an enhanced breeding population would be
present in the spring. The stations also proved to be an excellent
location to site traps and hence monitor what species were actually
using the feeding stations. Initial trials indicated that black
sunflower seeds were preferred over grain or a wild bird seed
mix.
A variety
of species quickly started to use the stations and trapping
success was consistently over 50%. Bank voles, wood mice, yellow-necked
mice and water shrews were all shown to regularly use the stations.
By simply measuring the drop in level of the seed over a two
week period a quantitative measure of activity could be obtained
without the need to trap or disturb the mammals in any way.
We are now entering our second year of feeding and are linking
mammal activity with habitat management. Early indications are
showing that the mammal activity level this year is indeed higher
than last and hopes are high that barn owls will once again
find Alton Water to be an attractive site to breed.
