The Long-eared Owl (Asio otus) is recognised at once by its long ear tufts and orange eyes, breeding readily in old crow nests and hunting over open ground at dusk and through the night — one of Sweden's more widespread owls of farmland. It measures 35–40 cm with a wingspan of around 90–100 cm and a weight of about 220–435 grams, slender for an owl with bark-like, brown-streaked plumage. Its most conspicuous feature is the pair of long ear tufts, feather ornaments unconnected to hearing, which the bird raises especially when alarmed, when it can resemble a broken branch; the orange eyes are a further good mark.
The male's song is a dull, monotonous, long drawn-out "huuuh ... huuuh ... huuuh", repeated at intervals of a few seconds and heard mainly in spring from March to May, while the begging calls of young in July and August are highly characteristic — a squeaky, plaintive sound often likened to a rusty gate. The species occurs throughout Sweden except on the alpine tundra, with a population of roughly 5,000–10,000 pairs that fluctuates with rodent abundance; southern birds are largely resident while northern ones are short-distance migrants, and in winter Long-eared Owls may gather in communal daytime roosts of dense spruce or thickets, sometimes numbering in the tens, often in parks and cemeteries. It builds no nest of its own, taking over an old crow's or magpie's nest in a conifer stand near open ground, where the female lays 3–6 eggs incubated for 27–28 days; the young leave the nest before fledging to clamber about nearby branches. It feeds almost exclusively on small rodents, chiefly voles, hunting by flying low and silently over open ground or watching from a perch, so that its population and breeding success closely track the vole cycle.
Read about this species in Swedish →