The secretive Long Eared Owl.

Long Eared Owls are very difficult to see well in the UK, they are quite strictly nocturnal and spend their days roosting in dense copses out of sight.



Their only give away is the adult’s deep and far carrying hoot – like a mini foghorn. The young in the spring utter a call akin to a squeaky gate hinge, other than this they are ostensibly unobtrusive.



In Lesvos they roost and breed, often in Corsican pines and frequently in the middle of towns. This is the best place to see them and it’s just a matter of closely scanning the branches for roosting birds.
We came across two adults and two chicks in one such location near to our hotel and we were very lucky to see the adults out hunting in the dark because they were passing street lights regularly on their way back and fore to feeding the youngsters.



However, one afternoon one of the chicks got a little too confident and fell out of the roosting tree which was a big problem because there are quite a few feral cats around Lesvos towns and they were obviously a great danger to this young bird.
Fortunately there was a Dutch bird ringer around and he caught the young owl.



And another birder got hold of a long ladder and reinstated the bird back up from where it had fallen.
All’s well that ended well – in that situation anyway.