{"id":1772565,"date":"2017-11-25T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-25T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?guid=0434373ce662e528b76e195818bbe067"},"modified":"2019-12-23T01:25:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T12:25:00","slug":"pygmy-owls-in-maridalen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/pygmy-owls-in-maridalen\/","title":{"rendered":"Pygmy Owls in Maridalen"},"content":{"rendered":"

You wait a year and then two arrive. On Thursday I discovered there are two Pygmy Owls in Maridalen and they have adjoining winter territories which bodes well for further sightings and perhaps a chance of breeding next year? Saying that though I am unsure of the sex of the birds.<\/p>\n

One has called but not sang a few times which I take to be a sign it is a female whilst the other bird gave the species autumn song a couple of times which I assumed would mean it is a male but upon reading up I see that both sexes apparently give the autumn song.<\/p>\n

At one point after I had used playback both birds were in the same tree and the presumed female (whose area we were in) chased off the other bird (which had flown a few hundred metres to be there) which then returned to its own territory but there was no big confrontation between the birds.<\/p>\n

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I had the bird so close but in the shade that I was able to use the flash on the superzoom<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today I spent some very quality time with the presumed female and even took my tripod with me so have taken some film of better quality than my usual offerings. The other bird sang a couple of times from its territory but did not show.<\/p>\n