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Birds > Owls > Eurasian scops owl Otus scops

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It was not another photo trip, but every opportunity should be seized as much as possible to take pictures in the field. In Sardinia photographing birds is not an easy task, just like in Poland. Unless someone wants to photograph a yellow-legged gull or, from quite a distance, flamingos which were numerous in Sardinia. But in such cases it is needed to resort to local guides, who turned out to be kind and competent. Thanks to them I managed to take the first pictures of the Eurasian scops-owl  and also significantly improve the quality of photos in several other galleries. I send my regards to Eduardo and Salvatore - thanks to you I saw the most interesting side of Sardinia, and without your help my "Sardinian" photographic output would be much more modest, if not none. Of course, I could not do without a well-located lookout. Birds were so different in size that it was difficult to decide what height would be the best to set the tripod. On this day the most important were to be flamingos, which were told to approach so closely that watching them out of lying position did not make sense. And sure enough it was like that, the tripod had to be customized to the size of flamingos although it was not a good perspective to take photos of ohars, Eurasian spoonbills or squacco herons.

As usually, I have included a list of these species that had been photographed in Sardinia. The letter “T” placed after the species name means that information (text) is attached to the gallery, and “G” indicates that the sound is attached. The list of the species at the same time refers directly to relevant galleries.

To start with the biggest trophy of this trip let me introduce an Eurasian scops-owl. Although it belongs to the fauna of Poland I would not count on taking its pictures in our country. In Sardinia, like barn owls, they are quite common. Unfortunately, both species are nocturnal owls and finding them throughout the day is practically impossible. At night Eurasian scops-owls sounds quite specifically, nevertheless it is not so easy to take notice of them. What is shocking at the first contact with this bird is its filigree silhouette. It is even smaller than a little owl! There was no problem with recording the voice of the bird, but I took few photos, in memory of my first encounter with this owl. I am not keen on photos taken with a lamp when it comes to nature photography, but this time it would not be possible otherwise. Well, after taking a few pictures of this tiny owl we began to search for barn owls. We found two individuals, but the birds were quite far away and they were very skittish, so our expedition ended just with  watching.

Otus scops
Otus scops
Otus scops
Otus scops
Otus scops
Otus scops