Appearance:

A small, tubby and compact owl with long legs, yellow eyes and stern expression. Head without tufts or any sharp corners, proportionally smaller than in Tengmalm's Owl, and without large, white facial discs. Upperparts greyish brown to buff, with boldest white spots of any small owl in the region. Underparts whitish with heavy, brown streaking. Flight characteristic, with alternating wing flapping and closed wings. Runs, or even hops along the ground. Posture mostly erect, but hunched when in alarm.

Sound:

Song a clear drawn "klooit" resembling Scops Owl, but with different intonation and longer single notes. Tone rises slowly in pitch throughout the call and ends with marked raised pitch, often with a change in timbre to a coarse shriek. Rich repertoire of social sounds: E.g. a clear "klewew", and sharp short "kek kek kek".

Song, contact call:

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC

Appearance:

Small dabbling duck. Males unmistakable with broad white supercilium and high contrast between the dark mottled breast and the lighter flanks (visible at considerable distance). Female mottled in light brown colours with typical supercilium and contrasting eye-stripe. White spot at base of bill. Throat much lighter than in Teal. Both sexes with dark and fairly long bill. Head gives a square impression due to the flat crown. Speculum in flight shows narrow white edges, lacking Teal's broad front edge. Agile flight, but lacks the twists of Teals.

Sound:

Male display sound a characteristic dry rattling, like the sound of running fingernails along the teeth of a comb. A bit similar to Ptarmigan. Also heard at other times than when courting. Female: like female Teal, but typically a bit deeper and shorter calls.

Display-call male:

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC