Scops owl

The scops owl is a tiny owl with bright yellow eyes and two little feather tufts above its head. Its grey-brown feathers are covered in fine streaks and zigzags, so a sleeping owl can look almost exactly like a piece of tree bark. It spends the day tucked quietly beside a trunk or inside a tree hole.

After sunset, the scops owl wakes and begins to hunt. It waits on a branch, listens and watches, then swoops down to catch a moth, beetle or grasshopper. Spiders and earthworms are also on the menu, and it sometimes takes a very small frog, lizard, bird or mouse.

You may hear a scops owl before you ever see one. Its call is not a long hoot, but one soft, rounded whistle repeated every few seconds. A male and female can call together while they defend a nesting place and prepare to raise chicks.

Many scops owls are remarkable travellers. They raise their young across southern Europe and western and central Asia, then fly to Africa south of the Sahara for winter. Some birds in the warmest parts of southern Europe stay closer to home all year.

Scops owls need open places rich in insects, with old trees or other safe holes for nesting. Protecting mature trees, keeping insect-rich grassland and gardens, using fewer harmful pesticides, and adding well-designed nest boxes where natural holes are scarce can all give these small night hunters room to thrive.