THE Hawk and Owl Trust is establishing hundreds of roadside homes, including areas of Wiltshire, for one of the nation’s most identifiable birds of prey in a bid to try and halt its decline.

Made famous by Ken Loach’s gritty northern film Kes in 1969, the kestrel has become a cause for concern by the Trust and has prompted it to install a number of nest boxes on the county’s roads as part of a nationwide experiment.

Backed by funding from renowned conservationist Dr Luc Hoffmann, it aims to establish whether providing nest boxes within suitable feeding habitats will help to reverse the falcon’s population slump.

The kestrel hovers above the rough grassland on roadside verges, looking for prey, but following a sharp decline in recent years it is no longer the most common bird of prey in the UK.

Buzzards and sparrowhawks are now thought to be more numerous, according to a report on the status of the UK’s birds of prey, which found that the kestrel had declined by a fifth between 1994 and 2005.

Vital nest boxes for kestrels will now be placed in the vicinity of major roads in the UK.

Trust staff and volunteers, including local members’ groups, have been selecting suitable sites with landowners’ permission for nest boxes along a 10-mile stretch of each of the roads identified in the project.

In Wiltshire nest boxes are being installed along the A303 from Mere to Amesbury and on the A420 from Chippenham to Wick in South Gloucestershire. Slightly further afield they can be found on the A370 from Bristol to Congresbury, the A46 from Swainswick to Horton and the B4058 from Frampton Cotterell to Wotton-under-Edge.

The nest boxes will be monitored in the spring to check occupation by breeding kestrels. The target is 240 nest boxes along 240 miles of major roads across the country.

“We want to see whether lack of nesting sites is the missing link. The reason for this roadside hunter’s worrying decline,” said the project’s national co-ordinator, trustee Major Nigel Lewis, who is responsible for the section along the A303.

Major Lewis said his group had made a great impact with the kestrel nestboxes on Salisbury Plain and around South Wiltshire in the last three decades. Most are now used by breeding kestrels and last year there were 54 pairs. Nigel has drawn on this experience in devising the Kestrel Highways project.

“The nest boxes we will be putting up for the project will be in trees, except in North Yorkshire. The results at the different sites and associated habitats will provide valuable data on the factors that affect the breeding ecology of these falcons.”

Supporters can contribute by reporting sightings of kestrels in the project areas by visiting www.hawkandowl.org