Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS

THE ROLLERS AND THEIR ALLIES

THE OWLS

European Long-eared Owl

The oldest and in some respects best-known species is the European Long-eared Owl (A. otus), a bird about fourteen inches in length, which ranges over Europe generally, Asia as far east as Japan and China, and south to northern Africa and northwestern India. It is a beautifully mottled bird, the upper parts being a blackish brown, finely mottled with brown and gray and streaked with dark brown. The facial disk is a warm buff, with grayish black margin and outer rim.

The lower parts are a warm buff and gray with blackish streaks and minute transverse bars, while the tail is ochreous barred and slightly vermiculated with brown. The bill and claws are dark horn-color and the iris orange-yellow.

The Long-eared Owl is a resident species throughout the larger part of its range, although to the eastward it becomes somewhat migratory. ,It shuns habitations and ruins and frequents wooded districts, spending the day among the dense branches of some evergreen tree with its slim body pressed against the larger limbs and at such times is almost invisible. That it can see in the daytime, however, is attested by some observers who have seen it”sailing quietly along, as if hawking, on a bright sunny day.”But it is mainly nocturnal, becoming active at dusk and remaining so during the entire night, returning at dawn to its seclusion in the dense trees. Quite unlike most Owls, it is more or less gregarious, as many as a dozen or fifteen being often found in company.

On this point Mr. Abel Chapman says: “As soon as the young are fledged the whole of the Owls associated together, perhaps three or four broods, old and young in a single family, choose a thick black fir for their abode. Here they all passed the day. To this particular tree the whole of the Owl-life of these woods resorted regularly at dawn, and in it slept away the hours of daylight, hidden amongst the deep evergreen recesses.

Toward dusk their awakening was manifested by the querulous cat-like cry; ten minutes later their silent forms appeared outside the wood, and after a few rounds of preliminary gyrations it was dark enough to commence operations in earnest.”They are rather silent birds, except possibly when young, the commonest note being a mewing cry, heard when the birds begin to arouse themselves from the daytime sleep; occasionally they emit a short, barking cry.

The food consists principally of field mice and rats, but it also preys on large insects, small birds, an occasional young hare or rabbit, and sometimes frogs. It nests in wooded districts, usually taking possession of the abandoned nest of a Crow, Magpie, or Heron, or even a squirrel's dray, in which it deposits from four to six nearly round, smooth white eggs.

previous bird species next bird species