WITH regard to owls, it is a little like teaching your grandmother to suck eggs.

Most farmers will encourage owl populations by putting up boxes. My bother-in-law’s boxes (to a design by Robert Fuller, the Thixendale artist) had a clutch of owls successfully reared in one box and one in the other.

Nine in all, fed nightly with chicks supplemented by mice. Five were “rung” by Defra. Sadly two adult chicks were found dead in the field, what killed them?

Kestrels were reared nearby, were they the culprits? They feed at the owl table too.

I had kestrels reared in my intended owl box, four in all. We have myriads of birds at our feeders, including the dreaded sparrow hawks who are always in attendance where so many small birds are.

Pamela Frankland, Hull Road, Dunnington, York.