![]() ![]() Individual male scops owls can often be identified by their hooting. Most individuals do not bip at all and amazingly, a 26-page study of individual variation in hooting (Dragonetti 2007) fails to mention it at all. Sometimes an individual gives just an occasional bip. Their presence or absence in Eurasian Scops seems to be a matter of individual variation. Oriental Scops Owl O sunia and its close relative the Socotra Scops Owl O socotranus also have one or more quiet, lower-pitched notes preceding the main hoot (Pons et al 2013), so these may be a throwback to a common ancestor. In Cyprus Scops Owl O cyprius, bips are the rule and very audible. Hooting with an additional bip occurs at a low incidence in all regions where Eurasian Scops Owl occurs, including Pakistan where Roberts & King (1986) showed it in a sonagram. Of the taxa usually included in Eurasian Scops, only cyprius, a resident of Cyprus, sounds markedly different, which is why we regard it as a separate species. Remarkably, their hooting sounds very much the same across the whole of this vast range. Vagrants of either species need to be identified with care.Įurasian Scops Owls breed in a band of suitable habitats from Morocco and Iberia across southern Europe, skirting the Black Sea and the Central Asian steppes all the way to Lake Baikal in eastern Russia. In Pygmy an L-shape is rarely visible in sonagrams and never strong enough to be clearly audible. In sonagrams, this corresponds to a rapid initial descent in Scops the notes appear L-shaped. If in doubt, one of the most reliable things to listen for is an initial t- sound in Scops, as opposed to a softer p- in Pygmy. However, the individual notes are lower-pitched and more modulated than those of Pygmy, and the gaps between them are longer (Lindén 2013). Hooting Eurasian Scops Owls can sound quite similar to Eurasian Pygmy Owls Glaucidium passerinum. Three of the four males converge around the same pitch, a slightly sharp E for a musician or 1333 Hz for a scientist. There is little to inhibit the four singers in CD2-12, or to distract me from listening to them. Three other owl species are quiet, including two – Eurasian Eagle-Owl Bubo bubo and Tawny Owl Strix aluco – that are sworn enemies of Scops (Mikkola 1983). Now and then a distant dog barks or a feral pig squeals. Cicada orni’s camouflage against the tree bark is every bit as good as a scops owl’s, but ‘singing’ loudly in the afternoon makes it much easier to find.Īfter dark, up to five male Eurasian Scops Owls call at once, accompanied by crickets and the occasional Southern Tree Frog Hyla meridionalis. After climbing to inspect a few holes, which I can discount due to the presence of spider webs, I usually end up playing ‘spot the cicada’. Arriving in the heat of the afternoon, I spend an hour or two searching the scattered Holm Oaks Quercus ilex for roosting owls and nests. It is a pleasant place to be, especially during the coolness of the night. One of my Eurasian Scops Owl sites is a small, secluded valley only 18 km from the busy Algarve coast of Portugal. In all but the warmest pockets of their breeding range they are obliged to migrate south to winter in the tropics. In summer they can count on a steady food supply, not fluctuating from year to year. A diet of large insects precludes them from breeding in northern Europe. There they reach higher breeding densities than any other Western Palearctic owl. ![]() Mediterranean summer nights would not be the same without their musical toot, roughly every three seconds. They are also tiny, no larger than a Common Starling Sturnus vulgaris. When roosting, their ‘ears’ break up an otherwise rounded profile and their cryptic plumage makes them look like a bark-covered stump. By night they tantalise me with their obvious presence by day they vanish into thin air. Over the last five summers I have spent far too many hours under the spell of Eurasian Scops Owls Otus scops. ![]()
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