Nature Done Wright

    I stumbled upon the idea of a Screech Owl Panic Room by accident.

  Not far from my Screech Owl box is a Wood Duck nesting box (foreground, photo at left), and one spring I actually had a Wood Duck female lay eggs in the box and raise nine ducklings.  

   The next year I installed a little video cam in the wood duck box, and had the TV set up so I basically had a Wood Duck nesting box channel and a Screech Owl  nesting box channel (the Celery Farm TV Network).  

  The Wood Ducks never came back, but a strange thing happened.

  The Screech Owl parents were very aware of the box, and treated it their cold cellar. Every so often they would leave food in there, and then raid the box as needed.  

   I have found that when a squirrel evicts the screech owl (always during the day), the owl simply flies over to the Wood Duck box — his panic room in times of attack.