One evening, as I was going to bed, a sweet but faint sound reached my ears: “ououho … ououho…” Eagle-owl! Since that evening, we heard quite often the territorial calling of the biggest owl in the world. This song, only emitted by the male, is very powerful and can be heard up to 4 km! It’s used to delimitate the (huge) territory (15-80km²) of the eagle owl and for courtship.
But let’s start from the beginning and let me present to you the eagle-owl.
Sixty to seventy centimetres high, more than a meter and a half in wingspan, the eagle owl is the largest of the nocturnal birds of prey: it is almost the size of an eagle! It is distinguished by its large head decorated with 8 cm long egrets and its large orange-yellow eyes. Male and female look alike, the male simply being smaller than his mate.
The European eagle owl is widely distributed over all Eurasia, although patchily in Europe.
In its vast range, the eagle owl occupies quite varied habitats. In Europe, it is a bird of rocky country and/or forest habitats, away from human activities. Eurasian eagle-owls do not build nests or add material but nest on the surface or material already present. They nest on sheltered cliff ledges or in crevices, in a cave entrance, on the ground on steep slope or can occasionally use old tree nests of other species. One or two eggs (rarely three or four) are laid in late winter (February-March). The eggs are incubated for 35 days by the female and the young leave the nest after around 5 to 7 weeks. However, the young eagle owls stay with their parents and are fed by them until they become independent, between September to November. Eagle-owls don’t migrate but juveniles will disperse over variable distances, looking for a territory and a mate.
The eagle-owl can live for up to 20 years in the wild.
For hunting, it abandons the dense forest and hunts in open forest and in peripheral environments, including very open environments if they are rich in potential prey. It can even frequent places that are very marked by human activities during the day but are quiet at night, such as landfills and other dumpsites where the brown rat is abundant. It feeds mostly on mammals from small rodents to hares and birds to the size of herons and buzzards, but it also consumes reptiles, frogs, fish and larger insects. It also preys on other owl species. The Eurasian eagle-owl can attack and kill large prey far beyond the capacities of most other living owls. Another impressive fact is its diversity of prey, and its capacity to adapt to surprisingly small prey where it is the only kind available and to large prey where it is abundant.
During the 20th century, the population of eagle-owls declined in Europe due to poisoning, hunting and other human-related causes. Now protected in a lot of countries, its population is increasing. It’s estimated that 25 000 pairs breed in Europe. However, some threats remain. It still suffers from human persecution and poisoning from mercury seed-dressings, and deaths through road traffic, barbed wire and overhead wires are not insignificant. It is also extremely sensitive and the slightest disturbance can cause the abandonment of the nest.
After hearing it sing, let’s now try to see it, and why not find its nest… without disturbing it of course!
(And if you want to listen to it, you can go here : https://xeno-canto.org/species/Bubo-bubo)
Source: BirdLife International. 2021. Bubo bubo (Europe assessment). The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2021: e.T22688927A166223956. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2021-3.RLTS.T22688927A166223956.en. Accessed on 20 February 2024.
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