Hooters!

It is time for some owl eye candy me thinks.

Tengmalm's Owl (perleugle)

Owl Road has had less and less to offer this spring and a trip on Thursday night with none other than my owl buddy supreme Per Christian resulted in just two Tengmalm’s but the night ended up being a matter of quality over quantity with my finally getting to properly film a singing male. And because it was “only” -7C my fingers didn’t suffer too much either.

The night offered absolutely perfect conditions for owling even if it was obviously not ideal for the owls themselves. There were no clouds, not a breath of wind and a full moon. We would have heard an owl fart at 10 kilometres range if they were there…

I am at a loss to explain why each trip (and this was my sixth this spring) has had fewer birds and why the GGs have seemingly disappeared. Either rodent numbers have declined after the snow melted such that there is no longer enough food to support a breeding attempt or alternatively there has been so much food that eggs have been layed and singing is no longer a priority. Another explanation is that temperatures have increased for each trip making the owlers time more comfortable and maybe the Bird Gods only reward you if you really suffer for it.

I do feel that the Bird Gods favoured me though because the encounter with bird on Thursday was more than I could ever hoped for, although if I could make one complaint it would be that the owl was perched a bit too high up and it could have made more an effort to look at me when it sang 😉

 

Owl Road

filming the Tengmalm's

I have also tried to get better film of the Long-eared Owl but three subsequent trips have resulted in worse views and in the end no views (or hoots) although I did manage some footage with the thermal imager.

Trips to Maridalen have not revealed any LEOs but Tawny Owls have been in fine voice and I heard and recorded an interaction between a pair that matches recordings of mating on The Sound Approach. They made a lot of different noises including “chittering” which I understand to be from the female at the time of mating.