Tawny owl boxes installed to tackle allotment rodents

Bird boxes have been installed at an allotment to encourage birds of prey to nest in them and in turn tackle a rodent problem.

Wallingford Town Council has introduced the bird boxes at the Fir Tree Allotments, in Oxfordshire, in the hope of attracting tawny owls to prey on its resident rat population.

The allotments are used by the mental health charity Mind, which had reported that rodents were consistently targeting their fruit and vegetables.

Town councillor Mike Acreman explained that gardeners had been "growing fantastic food... but the rats were coming in and eating a lot of it".

Acreman, who built the bird boxes himself, said the idea came about after those running the Mind allotments contacted the council for help.

"They came to the council and said 'we need to try and reduce the rat population because it's ruining our allotment and our produce'."

Confronted with this conundrum, Acreman said the council had a policy not to use pesticides and instead looked around for other solutions.

"We heard that other allotments had tried this idea of looking for a natural predator for the rats - so obviously a natural predator could be a bird of prey," he said.

"A few allotments had put up owl boxes... so I thought 'well there's a little challenge build some boxes'."

The bird boxes have been specifically designed to accommodate tawny owls - which are the UK's most common owl, but are considered difficult to spot by the Royal Society for Protection of Birds.

"We can't guarantee the owls will come, but we've done our best," Acreman said.

The birds, he confirmed, had been heard in the area around the allotments, but were yet to settle in any of the boxes.

"They're on the search at the moment, thinking about nest sites for the spring so hopefully they'll search them [the bird boxes] out.

"We just hope that they'll come and make homes in the allotments and eat some rats for breakfast."