ASTANA – Residents of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan are invited to join a regional campaign to count scops owls — small nocturnal birds best identified by their distinctive calls — from May 15 through the end of the month, Tabigat Media reported.
Photo credit: tabigat.media
To participate, residents don’t need to go to the forest: just open a window, go out onto the balcony or into the yard in the evening, listen for the owl’s signature “kyoot” call, and report the location on the website scopsowl.org.
This is how the scops owl is counted – a small but very useful owl that hunts insect pests.
The scops owl is one of the few owls easily identified by voice. Males sing actively at night in spring, producing a smooth, repeating rhythmic call that is hard to confuse.
The species often nests near human settlements – in parks, old tree-lined yards, and the edges of towns – especially in southern and southeastern Kazakhstan, including Almaty, Shymkent, Taraz, and Semei. Sometimes it is heard in the more northern part, in forest belts. This count will help to find out whether the nesting area of the scops owl in Kazakhstan has changed.
The scops owl counting campaign was first held in Almaty in 2020 and attracted great interest from residents. It was repeated in 2024, and this year the project expanded to Central Asia.
