Animals can be so strange....you may put all your time and effort into building just the right box, selecting a 'perfect' site, and then....nothing. Or the opposite may happen, and it will seem as if they were sitting around WAITING for you to get their new home up and going for them. I think it's different for everybody, but you will have to be PATIENT. Years ago we got a booklet from the DNR that had blueprints and general info for houses that were specific for each species. We looked it over and chose to make wood duck boxes, thinking they would have a place to nest by our pond. What we learned, in fact, was that many species simply don't care if a box is not "designed" for them...if they can get their bodies through the hole, there's nobody already at home (depending on the animal this may not matter either) and the place seems safe enough, it's a done deal. Not only will screech owls use a duck box as a day haven, they will indeed nest and rear young in them. There is a slough I frequent that has three duck boxes on it, and during one spring I discovered one particular box was home to a nest of screechies. I think the slough was dry that year, but usually this box is surrounded by about 2 1/2 feet of water...a rough first flight for any chick. I can't recall how many chicks were in that nest...I will have to try to dig out the animal album and find the photos. But they will use a duck box. When we first hung out duck boxes here at our place, I was getting frustrated waiting. It was something like three years before we finally found a nest, and then all three boxes had action!! It's worth the wait, so hang in there. But I'm still waiting for bats to use their house....I don't think they need any extra places with all the shagbark hickories. But the winner in my Crazy Nester category goes to the bluebirds at my dad's place. For the past three years, there has been a pair of bluebirds nesting in his martin house. Not a thing to be seen of any martins, but these blues are shoulder to shoulder with house sparrows and to this day I don't yet understand how they are pulling this off.

Unless you are in the wide open, treeless spaces of the Plains, forget it. Redtails are highly unlikely to use such a nest site. If there is a tree within 5 miles, it will be used before a lone pole. (I've bred redtails in captivity, and study their wild nesting habits.) Sorry. Thanks for thinking of these great birds, anyway. Put up some kestral nest boxes way up on the poles, and they will be used.

Yeah, the body parts can get to most people : ( Most raptors return to the same area, and many to the same nest site. But: I don't know about kestrels! Here's the thing: Someone will use that cavity, so it's a good idea to close it off after the bebes fledge. I am a bit confused by your last observation. American kestrels that are "immature" look pretty much like mature birds. You'd have to get a close look to see if they are really immature. You know, American kestrel populations have taken a hit recently, and I think it's because of poison (they are big insect eaters, and so suffer from secondary poisoning) and decline of suitable habitat and nest sites. I worked at a wild bird rehab center for over 10 years, and we noticed that many of the kestrel chicks we got were from cities, which was encouraging and rather startling, as these are birds that depend on grasslands for hunting. Here is a link that might be useful: AK info

I know there are scientific reasons that some color combinations are so pleasing... Correct again. Doesn't matter what primary colors you choose to comprise a color wheel (Red/Yellow/Blue or Cyan/Magenta/Yellow) in every case, harmonious color relationships are mathematical based on varied distances around the wheel. For example complementary color schemes means the two colors are opposite at 180 degrees. Analogous colors are neighbors on the color wheel at an angle of 60 degrees. Triadic means all three colors are equidistant at 120 degrees --- and so on. And that applies to the whole color sphere moving in all the way towards chromatic grays, not just the outside rim of the color wheel. Again, when you start dissecting color at this level, you start to understand how color really works and why it's so important to have a correct understanding of the proper structure of color. This is also where the miscellaneous color systems and processes people conjure up start to fracture into the disparate inaccuracies that they are. For example, just one popular 'method' is to collect a bunch of color chips and take them all home and then perform a process of elimination. When you understand how and why color works they way it does, you realize how ridiculous those approaches are. But. When people don't have the proper knowledge, they're left to their own devices. And when people are left to their own devices, they'll fill in the blanks the best they can. They make stuff up so color makes sense to them. It's an effort to shift color from something that's confusing to somethings that is manageable. Understandable how and why that happens. What's unfortunate is when the unfounded, inaccurate made-up stuff gets traction and takes on a life of its own to the extent that the mass consciousness then start to perceive it as fact. So instead of just one person being confused about color, you have many that are misguided and misinformed. It can be argued that the internet has not been a positive force when it comes to color education. Rather, it's done a lot of damage by providing a platform for the misguided and misinformed to spread their wealth of misinformation.