European Scops Owl : The smallest owl in the Iberian fauna , the European Scops Owl Otus scops, also seems the most sympathetic of the nocturnal birds of prey, perhaps due to its marked insectivorous nature in feeding and also due to its monotonous voice, but not without its musicality and that by dint of being heard comes to like, especially if it is known that the male’s song is normally answered in another tone by the female.
Summary
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- 1 Features
- 2 Food
- 3 Playback
- 4 Habitat
- 5 Sources
features
According to Vaurie, the breed that lives in the Peninsula and Balearic Islands Otus scops mallorcae, has plumage very streaked with gray, less brown than the subspecies that inhabits the rest of the European area where it breeds, and with more white and fewer brown spots. in the upper parts. However, this bird has two distinct phases in plumage coloration and both exist in Iberia. One is gray and the other is conspicuously reddish or brownish. All the plumage on the back is adorned with white dots and on the neck there is a white collar stained with sepia. The tail is grayish streaked with brown and black and is crossed by four or five whitish stripes. But the most prominent note is the long ears that stick out to the sides of the head and are made up of grayish-brown feathers. The eyes are sulfur yellow and the bill bluish black. There is no doubt that we are dealing with a curious and friendly bird that is far from producing the displeasure of other owls. His attitude when he is perched very stiff next to a tree trunk on a horizontal branch, is very curious. If he feels observed, he immediately presses against the bark and you really have to sharpen your eyes to distinguish him well. Although eminently nocturnal, it can also be seen during the day with regular activity and singing. In the Iberian Peninsula it is heard more than it is seen and it is rare to discover it flying. During the reproductive season, it lives in pairs, but later, when emigrating to Africa, it meets in small groups. They hunt insects in certain places where they are abundant and this can be the occasional cause of their gregariousness. It is also common near bright spots where nocturnal butterflies gather, hovering after them with great agility. It has been parked on the walls of some old Spanish towns, which are now illuminated for tourism and where insects abound in the summer months.
His voice is a monotonous sound, but not without a certain musicality, and it somewhat resembles that of the Spurred Toad Pelobates cultripes. It really is a simple whistle kiú! that the male repeats insistently and that is regularly answered by the female with the same or similar sound, but emitted in a higher tone, sometimes almost imperceptible to the human ear. Intervals between each whistle of up to 5 seconds have been measured, but it is almost always heard in periods of two in two seconds. Shortly after sunset and although daylight still dominates the landscape, the Autillo begins its song. There are numerous testimonies of singing during the day. Thus, Bannerman, who agrees with this assessment, quotes that Munn discovered on the walls of the city of Alcudia (Mallorca) to scoundrels singing in broad daylight, which is still surprising if we think about the brightness of the place. Tucker points out new sounds, not exactly musical, emitted at various times in the bird’s life, either in the nest or when it is alarmed. In places of exceptional concentration of scops owls, several songs can be heard simultaneously and it is then humanly impossible to locate them. Geroudet (1965) appreciates curious variations in the intensity of the voice of this bird, as if it were a ventriloquist. And he also estimates that the female, when she answers the male, emits her voice in a slightly higher tone and generally double or triple yi-ú-ú! Other voices more like meows when the bird is restless or a short, high-pitched hee-hee !! He sings a lot when arriving in March, although it has been heard in February in Asturias,
Feeding
The Scops owl is an eminently insectivorous bird. Its diet is made up of various species of Coleoptera and Orthoptera. Of these, the grasshoppers in June and July, especially Tettigonia viridissima, are one of its main prey. It also eats many lepidoptera that abound in the month of August and even earlier, months in which this little bird gains exaggerated weight, accumulating an enormous amount of fat before embarking on the emigration to Africa. Blondel gives notable differences for scops owls caught on migration in the Camargue (France) ranging from 66-92 grams in spring to 60-145 grams in autumn. Likewise, hot days abundant in winged ants are ideal for hunting the Scopshot. Small mice and birds are also captured, but not very often.
Reproduction
A hole in an old tree trunk often taking advantage of the one built by a Woodpecker Picus viridis and not very close to the ground is enough to nest without adding any material. Most of the nests are located at heights greater than two meters. It also nests in holes in the walls of old buildings and even under the eaves of roofs of cabins or mansions in old parks and gardens. The pair establish early in March, but it takes at least a month before laying starts. In April and often also in May, it lays three to six eggs, more often 4 or 5 quite round in shape, white and very dim. Jourdain gives an average of 31.3 x 27 mm for 100 collector eggs in Great Britain. Incubation seems to be carried out only by the female and lasts 24-25 days. starting with the laying of the first egg. Like the other owls, the male provides the prey to the female while she incubates and the same when the small scops are born, which leave the nest at 21 days, although they are not yet fully feathered and the head retains a lot of down, as well as other parts of the body. The color of the feathers is almost like the adults but the white color that produces so much contrast in them is missing and the brown streaking is lighter and less accentuated.
The European Scops owl breeds in an extensive area that goes from Northwest Africa to Asia, passing through southern Europe where it occupies France, Iberia, Italy, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the Balkans as well as all the Mediterranean islands, where it seems to be intimately associated with olive groves. Outside the Iberian Peninsula, the Scops scops breed is generally reddish brown, less markedly striped than the Iberian subspecies scops mallorcae.
Its distribution in the Iberian Peninsula is not regular, as we must not forget its eminently Mediterranean character. In this way, Iberian regions such as Andalusia concentrate an important population, while in the Cantabrian area and Galicia the Autillo is more widespread, preferably occupying old farms, and parks with large trees and old buildings. On the other hand, it is almost completely lacking in the new plantations of exotic species. Bernis (1967) estimates that as the bird is small in size and when it remains silent it is difficult to detect, it often goes unnoticed and the qualification given as rare in some European countries should be taken with caution.
The migration of this species has been the object of considerable controversy, since it is evident that this small bird, due to its habits, is difficult to monitor and the ringings have not yet been sufficiently numerous to be able to deduce from the subsequent recoveries wintering areas and routes. migration. What is clear is that a large part of the European population emigrates in the autumn and reaches the Mediterranean countries of Africa in a single flight that does not end on the same coast but inland, perhaps on the very edges of the Sahara. Iberia can be a route for autumn migrants and in fact it has been observed in abundance at this time in certain places in Guipúzcoa and La Rioja.
However, spring migration is much more noticeable along the entire North African coast. Through Iberia there is an abundant mass of scops owls and taking advantage of this flow many have been ringed, which have already produced numerous recoveries in the same place and a distant one. This corresponds to a Scops owl ringed in Baeza (Jaén) in April and captured in Haute Provence (France) in May of the following year. Another ringed in Belgium was controlled while passing through Huelva, back from wintering in Africa a year later. The same flow is observed in Tunisia, where they have been ringed in notable quantities, producing recoveries in the northernmost European countries, Italy, Yugoslavia, etc. Spanish scops winters largely in Africa, although there is no complete evidence. Vaurie claims to have examined a collector’s specimen of the mallorcae subspecies captured in March in Morocco and another possibly of the same breed, collected in an oasis in the central Sahara in November. But these are scarce data to affirm a thesis.
Habitat
Parks and gardens
