The Eurasian Scops Owl (Otus scops) is Europe's smallest owl, and an uncommon rarity in Sweden — a species that breeds around the Mediterranean but occasionally turns up as a vagrant in southern Sweden during summer. It measures 19–21 cm long with a wingspan of 47–54 cm, somewhat longer but slimmer and more compactly built than the Pygmy Owl. The plumage is greyish-brown with a fine, bark-like network of black streaks and speckles giving excellent camouflage against tree bark, and short, raisable ear tufts give it a "horned" look; the eyes are yellow-orange, and the species occurs in both grey and brownish colour forms. Pressed against a tree trunk, it becomes almost impossible to spot.
Its call, an even, monotonous "pjuu … pjuu … pjuu" repeated at roughly 2–3 second intervals like a sonar ping, is the surest way to identify it, carrying several hundred metres on warm summer nights and sometimes continuing all night from a fixed song perch in an old tree. It breeds in southern Europe, North Africa and western Asia, chiefly around the Mediterranean in France, Spain, Italy and the Balkans, and is a true long-distance migrant wintering in Africa south of the Sahara; in Sweden it is a very rare vagrant, with scattered records mostly in Skåne, on Öland and Gotland between May and September, and while historical breeding attempts have occurred, no regular breeding is known. Where it does breed it favours old parks, gardens, avenues, olive groves and open, warm woodland with hollow trees, nesting in tree cavities, old woodpecker holes or boxes, with the female laying 3–6 eggs while the male hunts and provisions her. Strictly nocturnal, it spends the day motionless against a trunk or hidden in dense vegetation, hunting large beetles, grasshoppers and moths in flight or on the ground, with small lizards, rodents and birds taken occasionally.
Read about this species in Swedish →