Brañosera installs 20 nest boxes for birds and bats in its Palencia mountain forests
Mature trees with cavities are scarce in many forests. To compensate, the project has installed 14 songbird boxes, 5 bat roosts and one tawny owl box.
A healthy forest has old trees, and old trees have holes: home to woodpeckers, tits, tawny owls and bats. But in many forests those trees are scarce. In Brañosera, in the mountains of Palencia in northern Spain, they’ve decided to lend a hand.
20 new shelters
The Bosques de Brañosera project, led by the Fundación Santa María la Real, installed 20 shelters in September on the Laderas del Arroyo de Rucabado plot in Salcedillo:
| Type | Number |
|---|---|
| Songbird boxes | 14 |
| Bat roosts | 5 |
| Tawny owl box | 1 |
According to the project, this “partially makes up for the shortage of mature trees with natural cavities” and strengthens the forest’s capacity to host woodland species.
Much more than boxes
The boxes are part of a wider plan to make the forest more diverse and more resilient to wildfire:
- Reforest 4 hectares with 1,200 native trees and shrubs.
- Build three stone piles that shelter reptiles and small mammals.
- Create a temporary pond for amphibians and invertebrates.
- Monitor wildlife with camera traps.
A dead or hollow tree isn’t clutter: for many forest species it’s a home.
If you’re out walking, respect nest boxes and don’t open them: in autumn and winter many are used as roosts. And to understand how a forest works from the inside, read did you know trees are connected by fungi?.
Sources and references
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