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While we are used to meet the tawny owl, familiar to all, in cultured landscapes on the Estonian mainland, then in Saaremaa they can be seen in forest surroundings the year round.

 

Faithful viewers of the deer camera can hear the calls of the tawny owl quite often but the bird appears more rarely in camera view. Around the feeding ground mice have settled down for winter; a fox also comes to prey on them.

 

Tawny owls spend the daytime hidden in the branches of a tree or in a spruce hedge where it presses against the tree trunk and so becomes almost unnoticeable. The tawny owls in Estonia have two plumage colours: greyish as well as rust-coloured, but also crosses between them. Body length is a little less than 40 centimetres, weight about half a kilo, the wing span stays below a metre. The beak is yellow and claws yellowish-black. The tail, lighter on the underside, makes up about a third of the body length.

 

The tawny owl appears on the quiet feeding place in order to hunt small rodents undisturbed, As we can see, it had to leave without a bellyful…

 

Tawny owl