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. I am grateful for the feedback and support from the team at Singapore Birds Project.Over the last five summers I have spent far too many hours under the spell of Eurasian Scops Owls Otus scops. Keita Sin: Sunda Scops Owl, Spotted Wood Owl, Brown Boobook, Barred Eagle-Owl Young birds, which have been documented in recent years, are almost fully white.ĭo also check out these 8 resident bird calls and see how many of them you can recognise!Īdrian Silas Tay: Sunda Scops Owl, Buffy Fish Owl, Spotted Wood Owl, Brown Boobook Adults are stately in appearance and easily recognisable by their distinctive ear tufts and extensive barring throughout their plumage. Comparing the calls of these two species is the most reliable way to tell them apart.īarred Eagle-Owls are rare residents of Singapore and have deep and loud calls. They look very similar to the Northern Boobook, a species that can be found in Singapore on migration. Families of the Spotted Wood Owl have been recorded in various parks like Pasir Ris Park and the Singapore Botanic Gardens.īrown Boobooks (aka Brown Hawk-Owls) are uncommon residents of our forests and can often be found in pairs. They can be seen in our parks and gardens and are easily recognisable with their orange facial discs and barred underparts. Spotted Wood Owls have a deep booming call and partners can often be heard duetting. They are a rich buff colour overall, with large yellow eyes paired with a white unibrow. As their name suggests, fish makes up a big part of their diet and hence they are usually found close to waterbodies. Sunda Scops Owls can be told apart from the migratory Oriental Scops Owls by their dark eyes and finely-streaked underparts.īuffy Fish Owls produce a screeching call that echoes through the night. They can be frequently encountered in a variety of wooded habitats and they feed mostly on insects. Sunda Scops Owls have a distinctive high-pitched note call that stands out from the nocturnal soundscape. In this article, let’s listen to the calls of 5 owls in Singapore and learn about their favourite haunts. To detect owls in the field, it is crucial to learn their calls since they are often heard instead of seen. Their name in Malay, burung hantu, which translates to “ghost bird”, aptly describes their habits (and they are certainly the preferred type of hantu to see). Owls are nocturnal birds of prey that are well-adapted for life at night, with big light-collecting eyes and serrated feathers that power a stealthy flight. During this time, however, a group of birds start to become active, having spent much of the day resting – Owls. As night approaches, most birds settle in to roost.
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