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In addition to “our own“ birds,  migrating pygmy owls stay here, mostly young birds from the north and east. As autumn progresses they move from their breeding areas and come closer to human settlements. In good years the winter number of pygmy owls may be more than a thousand individuals.
 

Both sexes have similar plumages the year round; the female is a little bit bigger. The plumage of the young birds goes through different phases but the size leaves no room for doubt about the species. They can for instance be compared to starlings. The beak and the large eyes are yellow, eyebrow streaks pale-coloured. Flight impression is soft and billowy.
 

Activity is mostly in the morning and evening twilight. Compared to the larger owls the habits are more diurnal; being hidden in night-time is a precaution to keep away from larger raptors. Prey is ambushed from the border between open areas and a forest or coppice, occasionally quite openly from a dead stump of branch or the top of a spruce. A pygmy owl, barely some twenty centimetres tall and frozen in its position, may well be overlooked in spite of its openly visible perch.