Finders in the Field: Scops Owl, Killay, Glamorgan
As a person who has inherited a love of British garden birds from my father, I decided that morning to top up my bird feeders like I do every Saturday morning.
So that I went to my greenhouse and grabbed both peanuts, seeds and a new seed feeder which I went to put in the willow tree at the bottom of the garden.
Once I got the willow something caught my eye and I looked to my right. I thought that my partner had bought a carved owl decoration but then it blinked at me! The small owl was probably no more than 4 feet away from me and I had no idea who was more shocked, me or the owl!
Typical that was the time that I had no phone in my pocket, so I slowly backed out from under the tree and walked back down my garden to grab my phone and shouted to my partner who is an amateur photographer, to get his camera.
We then quietly went back to the tree this time giving the owl more space and took some photos and observed it in our garden for about 5 minutes where it then flew off.
While I knew it was clearly an owl, I am a novice birder and so was at a loss to know what species of owl it was. So I ran it quickly the photos through Google image search which said it was a Scops Owl, but at the same time it said it was native to Southern Europe. As this didn’t quite seem right so I posted to a birdwatching group on social media, who confirmed that it was a Scops Owl.
Then they advised me to contact the BTO bird track to register the sighting of the owl as it was a rare species. I also contacted Rare Bird Alert who transmitted the news to their subscribers and followers on social media.
Both my partner and I have been completely taken aback by the amount of bird watchers who have been to see the owl. Having chatted to a few of them, there was some healthy scepticism, one even asked if I photoshopped the image of it perched in the willow, that was until I showed them my photo on my phone!
I’m delighted that so many people have seen this little owl for themselves.
The fact that this owl generated so much interest even on dark wet and windy December nights was lovely to see. We still feel lucky that, so far, we are the only ones to see it in the daylight during those five magical minutes when a Scops Owl came to our garden.
December 2025
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