About Us

The group founders and inspiration for the group came directly from the enthusiasm of the late Mrs Dorothy Bramall and her late husband George.

George & Dot moved to Burwardsley from Guernsey and could not understand why there were so few Barn Owls in Cheshire. George took on the task of organising the tetrads in West Cheshire for the national survey of the species and recruited the rest of us into the project. The project was led by Mike Toms for the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), and Colin Shawyer for the Hawk & Owl Trust. 

The dire state of the Barn Owl population in Cheshire was exposed as a result of the hard work and dedication to surveying the area – only nine breeding pairs in the county. This inspired Dot & George to form the Broxton Barn Owl Group with half a dozen locals in the Broxton area along with support from the local group of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

Years later, the group continues on, supporting the Barn Owl population in West Cheshire and surrounding areas, powered by a group of ever enthusiastic volunteers. 

Once the group had been formed, we needed a little help from local experts to guide us through the process of forming a group and monitoring techniques. 

Colin Shawyer and Sue Dewer, then of The Hawk and Owl Trust became our gurus and supplied the expertise we the volunteers lacked. Cheshire Wildlife Trust provided some early funding and created the post of Barn Owl conservation officer. The Biodiversity Action Plan Group for Cheshire led the drive to form other Barn Owl groups in the county.

George & Bernard Wright had begun giving talks to schools, youth groups, WIs, conservation and wildlife groups and now targeted the Wirral, mid-Cheshire and South Cheshire, leading seminars and workshops to set up groups similar to the Broxton group. They were joined by Alastair McCreary who worked closely with new groups and Bernard spread the process into adjacent Staffordshire working with the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust and local RSPB group.

The key to success was to talk to people. Local farmers and landowners in West Cheshire responded very positively to visits from these amateur ornithologists and soon Barn Owl boxes were appearing all along the River Gowy and the other streams and ‘wildlife corridors’ of the county. 

At first, funding was difficult but some income from the talks now being given by several group members together with donations from a wide variety of sources (see sponsors), enabled the group to bring the species back from what seemed like near extinction in Cheshire to a healthy breeding population that in 2006 produced over 650 young Barn Owls. Since then the group has gone from strength to strength working with other local groups to help bolster the population to an amazing 160-170 pairs in 2022. 

To enable the group to monitor the birds in West Cheshire Bernard, Alastair and Mike Whiteside became ringers under the guidance of Roy Leigh and Professor David Norman of the MRG. Other key members continue to stand the test of time providing valuable support including Les Chesworth making the group nest boxes and Steven Prince, Chris Whitehurst, and the two Erics carrying out field work.  

In recent years the group has acquired new core members to carry out monitoring, ringing and nest box siting with Jimmi Hill and Joe Cooper supporting Alastair and Bernard respectively and more recently Antony Jones, David Martin and Alasdair Grubb stepping up to the challenge. If you think you can offer the group support why not drop us a message via the contact page.