For those new to the group, they don't fall off due to the way their tendons are arranged. When they are relaxed, the tendons in their feet lock, holding them in place. They have to engage their muscles and do the equivalent of standing up to let them go.
Since 2009, the Austrian Ornithological Institute and Vetmeduni Vienna have been releasing Ural Owls that have hatched into human care in eastern Austria. The aim is to ensure the long-term survival of the owl species. 2016 was the most successful year of the project so far, with 45 birds released.
Zoo Zurich supports the reintroduction of the Ural Owl by handing over young birds. They strengthen the local population and are an important factor in the conservation effort.
In order for a stable Ural owl population to be established, young birds are needed every year to release them into the wild. Currently, 32 zoos and breeding stations in 7 European countries are participating in the project with 49 breeding pairs.
The releases are carried out in two steps according to a proven method. First, the young owls are placed in an aviary at the release site. This allows them to get used to their new environment.
In July, the birds are then allowed to leave the aviary and look for their own territory. If everything goes as desired, they start courtship in autumn.
Since 2011, the reintroduction project has been observing successful natural broods. 2021 was the most successful breeding year so far with 47 young birds from over 20 pairs detected.
However, counting the Ural Owl is rather difficult. He inhabits a large area. This is often difficult to access and is located high in the mountains. The birds' mainly nocturnal way of life makes things more difficult. In order to measure the success of the reintroduction, the project is therefore equipping the Ural Owls with transmitters.
Normally, Ural Owls breed in tree hollows or on nests of other large birds. In order to increase breeding success, the "Ural Owl Reintroduction" project is also setting up weather-protected nesting boxes. There are currently 550 of them. Volunteer nest box caretakers check them regularly.
The Ural Owl originally had a continuous distribution from Northern Europe via Russia to Japan. While there are still populations of wild Ural Owls in Eastern Europe today, they have been extinct in our neighboring countries Austria and Germany since the middle of the 20th century. The cause of this was hunting by humans and habitat loss.
It is not entirely clear whether the species was also native to Switzerland. There are historical references, but only a few.
(The video just says that the female laid 4 eggs in March. The male fed her while she sat on them. The chicks hatched over Easter, and if they grow up healthy, they'll be released in Austria.)
The helpers glued the butterfly swatter to the telescope arm and lifted both owls to safety. The video shows the moment when one of the owls gets to safety.
Do you have the link to the article/video? I want to see an owlet riding a fly swatter to freedom!
Edit: Found an article! It's a butterfly net, not a fly swatter.
I didn't think of it while I was translating to search for the article, but I searched the Finnish for "owl" and then the city name (owl and chimney gave too many results and all were old) but I didn't take note at the time that it looked like the Spanish "pollo," which means chicken.
Is "pöllö" used for anything else, or does it only refer to owls? I see some other Finnish owls don't have pöllö in their name, like Eagle Owl is huuhkaja.
Huuhkaja is the only owl without "pöllö" in its name. "Pöllö" is sometimes to describe something as "silly" or "stupid", we could say "are you an owl" to ask if someone is being dumb - which is a bit strange because owls are not considered stupid animals, quite the opposite!
I tried to look up the origin of that expression and didn't find anything in English, but I did see the sentence:
Pöllö kääntää päänsä ylösalaisin!
That sent me looking at why you guys have so many umlauts, only for me to learn those aren't umlauts, which you'd call pisteet, and I ended up learning more than I even expected to learn about Finnish vowels!
Haha well it's an interesting language and definitely not the easiest one to learn, so prepare to spend some time should you dive deeper into it! :D
One could say "oletko ihan pöllö?" - "are you a total owl?" meaning "are you stupid?" (silly/dumb, in a softer way), or "ei pöllömpi idea!" "not owlier an idea!" meaning "not a stupid idea!". Not a commonly used expression though.
They're so much fun to learn to identify, and it's nice being able to walk around and identify the funky lil fungi.
More generally having a hobby or interest in something in the natural world (be it fungi, owls, or done secret third thing) gets you outside and paying attention to the environment you're walking in. If I'm scanning the floor for fungi, I might spot other cool things (like a pellet) that gets me interested in something completely different.
Again, while (edit: the Spotted Eagle Owl is) in the same genus as one of the greatest American owls, this owl is its own species.
This is the most common owl in southern Africa, and it is the smallest of the Eagle Owls. They are commonly found near people, prefer to live in rocky areas, and have a distinct call from the American GHO.
How wild that these continents have such similar owls when so many other continents have owls that look like total aliens to me. Cause if you'd have told me that these were pics of a Burrowing Owl and a GHO, I'd 100% have believed you.
Whoops, I never said the one above is a Spotted Eagle Owl.
Here is a journey of Bubos from South Africa, through north Africa and the Middle East, to India, up through East Asia, over the Bering Land Bridge, and down to South America. I didn't include all the Bubos, but this should be pretty good showing how they changed as they spread out over most of the world. The Fish Owls also probably split off of this group in East Asia. The Snowy and GHO split off somewhere while the land bridge existed.
I'm actually surprised that they look more similar than I expected. Especially the coloring on this Pharoah individual and this Eurasian individual. But that body shape is surprisingly preserved across a lot of different geographies.
I did a little cherry picking in images, but mainly just to find ones not overly edited.
I wonder which is thought to be the oldest. Middle to east Asia is where the Eurasian Eagle Owl and the Fish Owls were the least GHO looking, while the more away from East Asia we go in either direction looks more GHO. If they branched off to be the Fish Owls that are only in Asia and the Snowies in the Arctic, that would seem to be where the most diversity came from.
I'm no zoologist though, so don't put much weight into this. 🙃
I'm glad you enjoyed it! This is a bit more direct comparison then I've done before as well.
At one point I was going to show off every owl, one by one, but since about 1/3 of all species would pass for your average Screech Owl, I passed on that project.
I don't see one on my end right now, but there's usually at least one on every post. It used to bother me, but now I just make jokes to myself like it's people from a pet rat community or something.
Some people just like trying to pass on their bad moods or something like that. I just feel sorry for them that downvoting random stuff is what makes them feel better. The whole reason I put stuff here is to give you a smile, but for some people it just doesn't work.
Nothing I can do about that, so I just keep going for us that do enjoy it!
Superbowl
Top
This magazine is not receiving updates (last activity 0 day(s) ago).