Ural Owl near Elbiku, Estonia

Observations from March 29th and March 31st

Off to another outing in the evening! This time, we wanted to try and find a Ural Owl. We went into a wood with a lot of clearings near Elbiku in the county of Lääne.

Our guide discovered footprints of a Brown Bear in the snow, crossing our path. According to him, they were about a day old. A few hundred meters along, we again saw footprints, this time imprinted in ice following the same path we did. They were older. There are approximately 700 Brown Bears in Estonia. On our trip, we saw footprints in the snow at three different places in Lääne county.

In the middle of a big clearing we stopped. Ural Owls don’t live in dense and big forests, they need light old woods with clearings. They are also very territorial, so our guide knew exactly where to go.

He played the territorial call of a Ural Owl. We didn’t have to wait long for the answer: Huhuhuhu! We stood still, listened closely and looked everywhere. Our excitement grew. Then, the Ural Owl came. It landed on one of the few remaining trees in the clearing. But before everyone had really seen it, it left again.

A Ural Owl flew along the edge of the forest. We now heard both male and female, calling their “Hus” and also the more croaking calls, but they remained in the forest. We stayed on, waiting. The calling stopped. But then, one of the owls showed up again and landed in a tree right before the setting sun. It was a very beautiful sight for a few minutes, before it left for good.

Two days later, we went back to this area in the early morning. After the sun had already risen, we saw a Ural Owl gliding through a thicker part of the forest and landing in a tree. It remained there longer than we did, probably still searching for prey.

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