Beyond diurnal farmland bird indicators: sex‐related movement ecology of a nocturnal owl highlights the importance of grasslands, meadow orchards and woody landscape features
Tracking study reveals sex-specific foraging patterns and habitat selection in Scops Owls, highlighting the need for nocturnal species in conservation policy.
Key Points
To assess the movement behavior and multiscale habitat selection of breeding Scops Owls to determine the role of farmland habitats for nocturnal wildlife.
Analyzed high-resolution GPS-tracking data from 16 breeding Scops Owls (Otus scops) in Slovenia.
Evaluated step length, activity variation across sexes and environmental conditions (temperature, cloud cover, moonlight), and calculated home-range overlap (n = 5 breeding pairs).
Assessed multiscale habitat selection across landscape elements including woody features, meadow orchards, grasslands, fallow fields, and arable lands.
Males displayed a distinct midnight activity peak, whereas female activity was evenly distributed; step length increased with temperature and decreased with cloud cover, with female activity rising under moonlight.
Home-ranges averaged approximately 40 ha with roughly 80% overlap within pairs (n = 5), showing selective preference for complex woody elements (meadow orchards, isolated trees, hedgerows) that comprised ca. 12% of the range.
Grasslands held the highest proportion of GPS fixes (ca. 27% of home-ranges) and were used in proportion to availability, while dominant arable lands (ca. 42% of home-ranges) and fallow fields were actively avoided.