Species Spotlight: Tawny Owl

By Matthias Alberti (Instagram: @shamanaturetours)

Matthias Alberti is a palaeontologist with a passion for birdwatching and bird photography. After working for almost three years at Nanjing University in China and birding throughout this fantastic country, he returned home to Germany with his wife Xia. Nowadays, they spend their free time watching birds in Germany or organizing their own international birding tours.

At the end of March 2024, my wife Xia made a beautiful discovery near our apartment in Kiel, northern Germany. She spotted a Tawny Owl with several young ones sitting somewhat hidden within a coniferous tree in a public park. Over the following weeks, we would regularly visit the owls and eventually found out that the family included a total of five young ones.

The parents were of the two known colour morphs. The larger mother was rufous-brown, and the slightly smaller father had a gray-brown plumage. While the mother usually stayed close to the offspring, the father was commonly sitting further away and changed its roosting site regularly, so it was more difficult to spot. Finally, the family disappeared in mid-May.

This year, we regularly visited the park throughout March and April to see if the owls were back. We were not successful and thought that the owls had moved on. After already giving up, we finally spotted a tiny baby owl sitting on a branch in the open on the 25th of April!

Apparently, the owls were successfully breeding again, but delayed for a few weeks compared to the previous year. In the following days, we again spotted both adult birds and a total of four young ones. Commonly, the babies sit high up in the tree and look like a fluffy ball of feathers.

The adults are much better at hiding and are often more difficult to spot. Occasionally, smaller birds (chaffinches, blackbirds, or jays) come and bully the owls, revealing their position to the observer.

All photos taken in 2025