BTO Owl Appeal

Get involved

The BTO is always on the look-out for people to get involved in surveys, everything from listing the birds visiting gardens to counting waders on an estuary. You can help to reveal more about what is happening to Britain’s owls by being part of our network of volunteers.

Tawny Owl Survey

The Owl Appeal will fund a Tawny Owl Survey, which will start in the autumn of 2005, a time of year when Tawny owls are particularly noisy. BTO Garden BirdWatchers will learn more about the Tawny Owl survey next year. If you are not one of our Garden BirdWatchers but would like to help, please send an e-mail to and we will keep you in touch with what we have planned.

Garden BirdWatch

The owl that is most likely to be encountered in a garden is the Tawny Owl but the reporting rate is very low. The thousands of people who take part in Garden BirdWatch provide invaluable information on the ups and downs within Britain’s bird populations. If you have a garden then here is a great way to justify staring out of your window.

Barn Owl Monitoring Programme

One of the areas to benefit from the Owl Appeal will be our studies of Barn Owls. Volunteers who take part in the Barn Owl Monitoring Programme check on the number of Barn Owls at sites across Britain. If you might like to help click here to learn more.

Other Surveys

Click here to find out more about other BTO surveys.

BirdTrack

Short-eared owls and Long-eared Owls are under-recorded. You can help us to make the best value of your sightings by contributing them to BirdTrack, a new on-line way of reporting the birds you see. BirdTrack is a joint project, managed by BTO but as a partnership with RSPB and BirdWatch Ireland.

Nest boxes

Tawny Owls and Barn Owls take readily to nest boxes. To receive instructions on how to make you own nest box, either e-mail with your name and address or purchase the BTO Nestbox Guide.

The BTO Nestbox Guide is a completely new book, containing everything you ever wanted to know about nestboxes. The 77 pages are packed with useful information on how to provide homes for birds, with excellent colour photographs and artwork.

The BTO Nestbox Guide can be obtained for £7.99 (plus £2.95 p&p for orders under £30) from BTO Boxes, The Nunnery, Thetford, Norfolk, IP24 2PU. Cheques should be made to BTO Services Ltd.