What a great 24 hours I have had with owls!
Yesterday evening looked to be good for owling so I
headed out with my owl buddy #1 Per Christian and as often seems to be the case
when we head into the forests at night we got up close and a bit personal with
a Tengmalm’s Owl. Just as it got properly dark at 19:50 we heard a quiet call
and a sweep of the thermal imager revealed an owl!! We got the torch on it and
then enjoyed it for 15 minutes as it just sat there wondering what these two
weird creatures were doing. It is a truly amazing experience to get so close to
this owl. They are tiny creatures but are clearly deadly assassins of the dark.
As you will see in the pictures from the thermal imager it was incredibly well
insulated which must be a necessity if they are to survive northern winters and
the only heat patches were around the eyes and bill.
This morning I was out in the same area with the
Beast and managed to find an even smaller Pygmy Owl which showed very well just
above eye level as it hunted amongst trees. I noted there were lots of holes in
the grass from voles which hopefully means we will have a good winter and
spring for owls in our area – here’s keeping wooden fingers crossed.
Otherwise it was a bit quiet in the forest except for Parrot Crossbills which I had a few places including singing and are definitely the dominant (maybe the only) crossbill species around Oslo at the moment where they are exploiting a good crop of pine (as opposed to spruce) cones.
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| Tengmalm's Owl (perleugle) spotted in the thermal imager |
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| look how well insulated it is |
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| in another mode |
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| Pygmy Owl (spurveugle) |
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| and a singing male Parrot Crossbill (furukorsnebb) |
Great encounters!
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