Owls

15 places to see and hear owls in the wild, in 10 countries from Norway to São Tomé and Príncipe: when each one peaks, where to go on your own, what it costs and what you will hear. Wild animals only, no zoos.

Best time, place by place

Where to go, north to south

• Lemming years and the owl irruptionNorway · Mountain mammals · peak 15 Jun–31 AugLemmings squeaking and chattering from every tussock and running across the trail, long-tailed skuas mewing, snowy owl barks and short-eared owl wing-claps, rough-legged buzzard mewing, arctic fox yips at a den; in a crash year, silence.
• Tawny owl territorial callingUnited Kingdom · Nocturnal · peak 10 Oct–30 Nov and 15 Jan–28 FebHoots and 'ke-wick' duets and disputes as young birds try to settle territories; sometimes three or four birds answering.
• Bavarian Forest: pygmy and Tengmalm's owls, woodpeckers, lynx countryGermany · Nocturnal · peak 10 Mar–20 Apr and 15 Sep–31 OctPygmy owl's piping series at dusk, Tengmalm's 'po-po-po-po' from the bark-beetle deadwood forest, Ural owl barking, three-toed woodpecker drumming rolls, nutcrackers; the loudest silence in Germany in the dead-spruce stands.
• Provençal nights: nightingale, scops owl & stone-curlewFrance · Nocturnal · peak 25 Apr–5 JunNightingales in every tamarisk, scops owls' 'tiu' on a 2–3 s metronome, stone-curlew wails from the Crau, nightjars churring on the garrigue, tree frogs from the marsh.
• Ural owls in the Wienerwald and Dürrenstein wildernessAustria · Nocturnal · peak 15 Feb–25 Mar and 15 Sep–31 OctUral owl's deep barking 'wuh-wuh... wu-wuhuh' series, female's hoarse heron-like calls, tawny owl duets, pygmy owl piping in the Dürrenstein old growth; snow-quiet beech forest.
• Thayatal: river gorge dawn, eagle owl and wildcat countryAustria · Dawn chorus & song · peak 25 Apr–25 MayOak-hornbeam dawn chorus with collared flycatcher, wood warbler, both nightingale species meeting (thrush nightingale reaches here), golden oriole, kingfisher along the meandering Thaya, eagle owl from the gorge cliffs in late winter.
• Karst nights: scops owl, nightjar and cicadasSlovenia · Nocturnal · peak 20 May–10 JulScops owl's monotone 'tyuh' every 2–3 s from village edges, nightjar churring on the dry meadows, sub-Mediterranean bush-cricket wall of sound, cicadas at 90+ dB at midday in July, eagle owl from the Vipava cliffs in late winter.
• Wolf howling and Ural owls, Kočevski Rog nightsSlovenia · Nocturnal · peak 15 Aug–15 Oct and 1 Feb–31 MarPack howls with high pup yips from rendezvous sites, carrying several km across karst dolines; Ural owl's deep barking 'wuh-wuh-wuho' and female's hoarse calls; Tengmalm's owl in late winter; red deer in the same windows from mid September.
• Paklenica canyons: eagle owl, chamois and rock birdsCroatia · Nocturnal · peak 1 Feb–20 MarEagle owl's deep 'oo-hu' bouncing between 400 m canyon walls, rock partridge cackling at dawn, alpine swift screams, blue rock thrush, chamois alarm whistles, the Velika Paklenica stream.
• Plitvice and Lika beech-fir forests: owls, woodpeckers, dawn chorusCroatia · Dawn chorus & song · peak 20 Apr–31 MayMountain beech-fir chorus with collared flycatcher and wood warbler, three-toed and white-backed woodpecker drumming, pygmy owl whistles at dusk, Ural owl barking in March, the constant waterfall bed on the lakes themselves.
• Scops owl nights on the Dalmatian islandsCroatia · Nocturnal · peak 1 May–20 JunSeveral scops owls counter-singing across a village at different pitches, nightjar churring from the maquis, Cetti's warbler, cicada tail-off at dusk, cricket and bush-cricket floor, sea against the shore.
• Mediterranean nights: nightingale & scops owlItaly · Nocturnal · peak 20 Apr–31 MayNightingales everywhere, the metronomic 'tiu' of scops owls (often several in duet), stone-curlew wails, tree frogs.
• Eagle owl winter callingItaly · Nocturnal · peak 1 Dec–15 FebDeep 'oo-hu' territorial hoots from cliffs, sometimes in male–female duet, echoing off rock.
• Nightjars and owls of the coastal woodland — Brufut and KotuThe Gambia · Nocturnal · peak 15 Jan–31 MarThe long-tailed nightjar's engine-like churr from every clearing, standard-winged nightjar's insect-like trill as males circle with their pennants, the deep grunts of Verreaux's eagle-owl in the big trees and white-faced scops owl's bubbling call.
• Príncipe after dark: the scops owl described in 2022, and the island's endemics at dawnSão Tomé and Príncipe · Nocturnal · peak 1 Dec–28 Feb and 15 Jun–15 SepA fast, insect-like 'tuu-tuu-tuu' at about one note a second, often as a duet with the female higher-pitched, from the old-growth forest of the uninhabited south — a sound nobody had named until 2022. Before dark, the island's grey parrots screaming to roost; at dawn, the thrush, the thrush-babbler, the speirops and the Príncipe sunbird in a forest with no roads.

More: every animal and kind · what is on in October