Milvus Group - Bird and Nature Protection Association » Asio otus

The third wintering Long-eared Owl census (2011-2012)

zsani — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:41:32 +0000

As in previous years, ”Milvus Group” Bird and Nature Protection Association organises the Long-eared Owl (Asio otus) census also this year. This program is running in other East and Central European countries with the same method: counting the owls in their winter roosts. This synchronous census is important to clarify some questions related to the species. With this method many unknown wintering places have been discovered in Romania. The involvement of volunteers is very important and we hope that more bird and nature enthusiasts will take part in this census. At the moment we have data from 13 counties from volunteer observers, hereby we would like to thank their help! Since the owls arrive to their winter roost sites already in November, we decided to introduce also this month in the data sheet, which can be downloaded here. After filling out the data sheets please send them to the program coordinator’s address: sanduandreeasteriana@yahoo.com. For further information about this census please write to the same address.

Melanistic Long-eared Owl

Szilárd — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:34:50 +0000

On 16^th June 2009, members of the Milvus Group captured and ringed near Livada de Bihor (Bihor County) an adult female Long-eared Owl (Asio otus) with an aberrant colour.
This partially melanistic bird showed all black feathers on his head, but we could also detect blackish feathers on the back, chest and wings, and the general plumage has a darker shade than normal. It seems that all these anomalous characters have not hampered the bird in breeding, which showing retired, but still well visible hatching patch, which confirms the fact that this bird had laid eggs in this year.

Owl ringings

koma — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:56:18 +0000

In period of 3 – 9 November members of the Milvus Group went on field to catch different owl species. The target areas were nearby Tg.-Mureş city. During the night field trips, the birds especially Tawny Owls (Strix aluco) were located and attracted into the mist nets with the species call, using a CD-player. A total of 12 Tawny Owls and 2 Long-eared Owls (Asio otus) were ringed. Beside the ringings the aim of these field trips was to gather data about breeding habitat and density of owl pairs. Observations were made on other species too, like Ural Owl (Strix uralensis) and Little Owl. (Athene noctua). As a result of the field research they found 50 locations with the presence of Tawny Owl (Strix aluco) and 9 places with Ural Owl (Strix uralensis). Hopefully the field trips will be repeated next year.