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The Staffordshire Barn Owl Action Group (BOAG) was set up in 2001 after it was estimated that there were only 30 breeding pairs of barn owls in the county.
The decline of this once common farmland bird is due to changes in farming practices, such as the loss of rough pasture providing good habitat for its prey of field vole and shrew. Roosting and nesting sites have also been lost where old barns have been converted into dwellings and old hollow trees have been felled. BOAG has been addressing this decline by installing barn owl boxes in key areas where the habitat is suitable to sustain barn owls and where barn owls have been seen.
BOAG monitors the boxes which gives a picture of which sites are successful and where more boxes can be installed to encourage barn owl populations.
In 2006 the Environment Agency (EA) funded a project with BOAG to install and monitor 40 barn owl boxes along targeted river corridors in Staffordshire. Areas along rivers provide good and generally undisturbed habitat for barn owls. Those 40 boxes have now been installed and the next stage of monitoring the boxes has already begun.
The funding from the EA will cover monitoring for the next 4 years by which time BOAG hopes the numbers of barn owls in these areas will be up and will have given a much needed boost to numbers in the county.
In 2006 the long wet spring was a poor year for vole and shrew numbers which in turn had a detrimental effect on breeding pairs of barn owls in Staffordshire. However, in 2007 an early warm spring has provided what looks like a good breeding year. As young fledge, nesting and roosting sites are already in place in areas of good habitat. | 
