Michele Mendi

The species occurs in open and semi-open forest and woodland habitats, farmland with trees, parks and gardens in human settlements. For hunting, it requires richly structured habitat, often with some preference for access to water (Holt et al. 2020). 

Its distribution covers most of W Palearctic – the species is widespread in Europe (except for N Fennoscandia and NW Russia), the occurrence is patchier in NW Africa, Middle East and C Asia (Keller et al. 2020).

All populations are resident. However, long-distance dispersal movements are rarely recorded.

Its population trend in Europe is unknown. Evaluated as “Least Concern” (BirdLife International 2021).

Season of assessment

B

Population trendStable
Population size
(min-max, best estimate)		1260000-1870000,1520000
Red List categoryLC
Franks, S., Fiedler, W., Arizaga, J., Jiguet, F., Nikolov, B., van der Jeugd, Ambrosini, R, Aizpurua, O., Bairlein, F., Clark, J., Fattorini, N, Hammond, M., Higgins, D, Levering, H., Skellorn, W., Spina, F, Thorup, K. Walker, J., Woodward, I. and Baillie, S.R. (1) (2022) Online Atlas of the movements of European bird populations. https://migrationatlas.org EURING/CMS (1) Principal investigator
Map

Overall Connectivity for Tawny Owl

All European populations are largely sedentary, the species moves only very short distances between seasons. Although the sample size of distant recoveries (>=50 km) is large, almost all long-distance movements are less than 300 km from the place of ringing. Usually no prevailing direction of dispersal has been detected.

Dataset involves mostly within-country movements and small amount of short-distance movements across neighbouring countries. In some long-distance encounters (British Isles, Finland to Poland) human assistance has been suspected (Saurola et al. 2013; Wernham et al. 2002). Other long-distance encounters (of more than 500 km) involve movements from Belgium to SW France, Hungary – N Italy, within Sweden.

Recoveries by Condition for Tawny Owl

Currently protected species in Europe. Most encounters are obtained after the mid-1970s. More than half of all encounters come from N Europe (ca. 51%). The encounters are mainly recorded in Apr-May – ca. 61% (nestbox ringing).

The encounters based on dead birds decreased over time (from 84% pre-1960 to 36% after 1991), while those based on alive birds – markedly increased (from ca. 11% to 61% respectively); the latter is mostly due to ringing encounters (mostly coming from Finland). Unlike many other raptors, shooting was not so frequent as recovery condition in the past (from 7% of all cases pre-1960 to less than 1% afterwards). Traffic is among the currently important negative factors (13% of all cases).

Annual Movements for Tawny Owl

In N Europe, post-breeding dispersal in juveniles takes place Sep-Nov, sometimes it continues in winter (Dec-Jan). In Feb-Mar they leave the wintering sites in search of breeding territories (Noskov et al. 2016). In temperate areas, dispersal is usually within radius of a few km of natal site; in Fennoscandia, up to 20 km (Holt et al. 2020). In Britain, only 7% of natal dispersal movements in juvenile birds have been of more than 20 km. Adults are strongly territorial throughout the year, the median distance moved is less than 1 km (Wernham et al. 2002). In Finland, both males and females have been found to breed within a radius of 3 km from year to year; the longest distance between two successive nest sites in males being 35 km, while in females – 231 km (Saurola et al. 2013).

Connectivity by Month by Region for Tawny Owl

In Finland, natal dispersal directions in adult males and females are distributed quite randomly – the respective distances from the natal site to the first recorded breeding site is 14 km (median) in males and 17 km in females. The preferred direction in juveniles during their first autumn and winter (Sep-Feb) movements is S, based on encounters at distances of more than 100 km (Saurola et al. 2013).

Higher dispersal rate and greater movements are recorded on the N fringe of the species range (Scandinavia) – even so, only 7% are encountered more than 100 km away (Wernham et al. 2002).

Juvenile birds in the populations to the N undertake dispersal movements in early- to late autumn and the movements towards the breeding sites usually start from late winter to early spring.

Boris Nikolov

References

Statistics Map
N records N individuals N recoveries
Mapped data*
Total available data
*Mapped data include only distant (>= 50 km) recoveries
References Map
2002 . The Migration Atlas: movements of the birds of Britain and Ireland. T. & A.D. Poyser, LondonEditor(s): Wernham, C.V., Toms, M.P., Marchant, J.H., Clark, J.A., Siriwardena, G.M., Baillie, S.R.
2020 . European Breeding Bird Atlas 2: Distribution, Abundance and Change. European Bird Census Council & Lynx Edicions, BarcelonaEditor(s): Keller, V., S. Herrando, P. Voříšek, et al.
BirdLife International 2021 . Species factsheet: Strix aluco. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 10/08/2021.
Holt, D. W., R. Berkley, C. Deppe, P. L. Enríquez, J. L. Petersen, J. L. Rangel Salazar, K. P. Segars, K. L. Wood, and J. S. Marks 2020 . Tawny Owl (Strix aluco), version 1.0. In Birds of the World Link to Article (DOI: https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.tawowl1.01) Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA
Noskov, G. A., Rymkevich, T. A., Gaginskaya, A. R. 2016 . Migration of Birds on Northwest Russia. Non-Passerines. ANO LA “Professional”, Saint Petersburg
Saurola, P. Valkama, J., Velmala, W. 2013 . The Finnish Bird Ringing Atlas Vol. I. Finnish Museum of Natural History and Ministry of Environment, Helsinki

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