Cyprus Scops Owl

Cyprus is a magnet for anyone interested in endemic island birds and their sounds. Its central Troodos Mountains rise to 1952 m, hiding traditional villages, Byzantine monasteries and a variety of endemic taxa in their folds. On the lower slopes, it is not difficult to find Cyprus Wheatears Oenanthe cypriaca and Cyprus Warblers Sylvia melanothorax. Up on top, forests of Black Pine Pinus nigra are home to Cyprus Coal Tits Periparus ater cypriotes, Cyprus Short-toed Treecreepers Certhia brachydactyla dorotheae and Cyprus Crossbills Loxia curvirostris guillemardi, all of which sound in some way different from their mainland counterparts.

Having spent the early daylight hours of 26 March 2000 walking through snow on north-facing, 1700 m high slopes in bright sunlight, a Cyprus Scops Owl Otus cyprius was the last thing I expected to hear. The first was a male, some distance away in a sun-warmed patch of pine forest. It gave a series of two-note songs, repeated every 3.5 seconds. A prominent bip preceded each louder toot by about a second (CD2-25).

More than half a century ago, Bannerman & Bannerman (1958) described two-note hooting in Cyprus Scops Owl, which they interpreted as a male-female duet. Over the next few decades, the number of birders on the island grew exponentially, but it was not until the early 1990s that somebody challenged this interpretation. Observing a local male by daylight, David Whaley (1991) discovered that a single individual could produce both notes. Several years later, Peter Flint and Jeff Gordon became interested and confirmed Whaley’s observations, also by visual means. While taking a holiday on the island, Mark heard about this discovery from Jeff, but remained unconvinced. When I decided to visit Cyprus in spring 2000, he suggested I check it out.

When I whistled an imitation, the high-altitude, daytime male came a little closer while still remaining out of sight. Soon a female added her own two-note song, somewhere close to the male. Hers was slightly higher-pitched than his, and they were almost but not quite in synchrony. With slightly differing phrase lengths, they very gradually moved out of phase. The exact sequence of the four notes in the duet – his two and her two – changed subtly with every repetition, resulting in a musical composition that a minimalist like Steve Reich would have been proud of (CD2-26).

As I explored the island over the next couple of weeks, I often heard Cyprus Scops Owls. Sustained bouts of hooting always consisted of two notes in a rigid sequence: quiet note, short silence, loud note, long silence. One time I managed to confirm visually for myself, by daylight, that one individual could produce both notes. I am convinced that this is always the case, not least because I know that Eurasian Scops Owl sometimes has a two-note song too. On my return, I told Mark that I believed David, Jeff and Peter were right. 

In Cyprus Scops Owl the bip is always strong while in Eurasian Scops Owl it tends either to be absent or exceedingly quiet, to the extent that very few publications have ever clearly acknowledged its presence (Roberts & King 1986, Rasmussen & Anderton 2005). There are two other ways in which Cyprus Scops hooting differs from that of Eurasian Scops Owl: delivery rate and pitch. On average, Cyprus Scops gives 17.6 phrases per minute, whereas Eurasian Scops gives 22. The mean frequency of the loudest point in the call is 1105 Hz for Cyprus Scops and 1349 Hz for Eurasian, with little or no overlap. 

In the Far East, Oriental Scops Owl O sunia also has bips between its louder hoots. Northern populations O s stictonotus and O s japonicus hoot more rapidly than Cyprus Scops Owl, and usually have two bips before each toot. Southern populations of Oriental Scops show more variation, including modulation of the main toot, which becomes trrt (CD2-27). Oriental Scops used to be included in Eurasian Scops Owl, but recent DNA studies have shown that it is a member of a group of about a dozen other species from southern Asia and the Indian Ocean, to which Eurasian Scops does not belong (Fuchs et al 2008, Pons et al 2013). Only one of those species, Socotra Scops Owl O socotranus, sounds very similar to Oriental Scops. At one time, I wondered if Cyprus Scops might be related to Oriental Scops and Socotra Scops. However, genetic studies place it extremely close to Eurasian Scops. With an mtDNA difference of just 0.1%, it must have diverged very recently, during the last major glacial cycle (Flint et al submitted manuscript). 

Towards the end of my stay in Cyprus, I recorded a pair of Cyprus Scops Owls near a stream passing an old Byzantine chapel. The male had two versions of the louder hoot in his song, one higher-pitched than the other. In CD2-28, he switches between them at 0:26 and again later. At 1:00 he hesitates briefly, inserting an extra bip before continuing as before. The extra bip has the effect of creating a longer, ‘three-note strophe’. Cyprus Scops often does this, and I have even heard the odd ‘four-note strophe’. Such strophes are usually scattered among normal ones, although CD2-29 gives an exceptional example of consecutive ‘three-note strophes’. So far, I have never come across them in Eurasian Scops Owl. To me, such strophes sound like tidy discontinuities. Scops owls are exceedingly meticulous timekeepers. Any distraction or hesitation, whatever the cause, is immediately assimilated within their strict sense of rhythm. 

Female Cyprus Scops Owls usually have two-note hooting very similar to males but slightly higher-pitched, weaker and more modulated. They also have a twiu call very similar to that of Eurasian Scops Owl, which only exists in a single-note version (CD2-30). The observation that female Cyprus Scops hoot with two notes but twiu with just one strongly supports recognition of the twiu as a different call type. 

My understanding of Cyprus Scops Owl sounds was enriched thanks to the help of Johannes Honold, who spent several months in Cyprus in 2013. Johannes and I came into contact when he sound recorded two Asian Buff-bellied Pipits Anthus rubescens japonicus on the island in March. When I realised there was a savvy sound-recordist staying on the island, I challenged him to find a Cyprus Scops nest and record some sounds that we still needed. He found several, and had a lot of fun while doing so.

At one of those nests, Johannes recorded a very amphibian-like version of the croaking call, apparently coming from a brooding female (CD2-31). Other recordings from the same evening included begging calls of tiny nestlings. I believe that the female was croaking while offering food to her young.

Johannes’s most important contribution was to confirm a vocal difference between Cyprus Scops Owl and Eurasian Scops Owl excitement calls that I had previously only suspected, based on a single call. The one in CD2-32 was surprisingly low- pitched, reaching a maximum frequency of 1084 Hz. Johannes recorded alarm calls of at least a further eight individuals. When I calculated the ‘means of means’ for all nine individuals, the maximum frequency in Cyprus Scops turned out to be 1227 Hz, while the mean duration was 0.36 seconds. In 10 Eurasian Scops from a variety of subspecies, the ‘means of means’ were 1572 Hz for maximum frequency and 0.3 seconds for duration. So, excitement calls of Cyprus Scops average lower-pitched and longer than those of Eurasian Scops. 

In CD2-33, two owls are excitement-calling from a nest in an abandoned monastery: a distant, higher-pitched individual followed by a much nearer and lower-pitched one that calls several times while moving away from us. It was mainly in July that Johannes recorded higher-pitched excitement calls like the more distant bird, suggesting to me that they may have been females. A month before, many would still have been in the nest, either incubating or brooding small young. Some pairs breed earlier than others, however, and one of Johannes’s earlier recordings also has excitement calls of two individuals (CD2-34).

The one giving the very first call is slightly higher-pitched than the other that calls from then onwards. My comparison between Cyprus Scops Owl and Eurasian Scops Owl excitement calls ought to be repeated with birds of known sex. Nevertheless, I have no strong reason to suspect a sexual bias in the recordings I used.

Another of Johannes’s sites was an ancient olive grove, a paradise for scops owls. By the time he recorded CD2-35, at least two young had fledged. One of them is begging and when an adult arrives, its begging intensifies. The adult gives a few excitement calls as it feeds the youngster, which gradually returns to a more relaxed calling rate. It is clear from this recording that begging calls of Cyprus Scops Owl are very similar to those of Eurasian Scops Owl. One family of each is not much to compare, but if anything the Cyprus juveniles sound slightly less disyllabic than their cousins from Portugal. After fledging, this family stayed in the olive grove, where René managed to photograph them. By this time their calls carried about 100 m, although Johannes recorded CD2-36 from much close range.

Breeding takes place several weeks earlier than in most populations of Eurasian Scops Owl. Small young of Cyprus Scops Owl have been found from late April onwards (Peter Flint in litt), suggesting incubation from early April and fledging from the second half of May. Eurasian Scops typically breeds very late. When I finally found a nest in Portugal, the young were set to fledge in late July. Even in North Africa, egg-laying time is May to early June (Heim de Balsac & Mayaud 1962), so fledging may be just as late as in Portugal. The earlier breeding of Cyprus Scops raises some interesting questions. Is their diet somehow different from that of their Eurasian relatives? Do they winter on the island, or do they migrate? 

A study of birdliming (Horner & Hubbard 1982) shed virtually the only light on Cyprus Scops Owl movements. Sadly, despite being illegal, catching migrants by such cruel means is still common in Cyprus. The number of owls involved is shocking. During the spring of 1968, 136 migrating Eurasian Scops Owls and 14 Cyprus Scops were limed at Paralimni, near the south-eastern coast. They could be identified by their plumages. Cyprus Scops is dark, like all the other bird taxa endemic to the island, existing only in a dark grey morph (Flint & Stewart 1992). The black streaks on both the upperparts and the underparts are heavier, white spots on hindneck and mantle are larger and more contrasting than in Eurasian Scops, and the spotting often extends to the crown and scapulars (C S Roselaar in Cramp 1985). Although wintering seems difficult to exclude, the Cyprus Scops at Paralimni were probably returning from overseas. Two specimens collected in Israel in or before March, closely resembling Cyprus Scops, support this hypothesis (Flint et al submitted manuscript). In the liming study, Cyprus Scops were present only between 12 March and 3 April, whereas Eurasian Scops arrived between 16 March and 8 May, with most in mid-April. So, the Cyprus Scops were back before the bulk of Eurasian Scops passed through.

In Turkey just to the north, Eurasian Scops Owls are migratory in all but a few warm coastal pockets (Eken 1997). A slight cooling of the climate might eliminate those wintering sites, and also render Cyprus itself unsuitable for wintering scops owls. Cyprus Scops Owl has wings as long as most Eurasian Scops, suggesting that migration has always at least been retained as an option. A scarcity of winter records on the island suggests that wintering abroad may be commoner than previously thought (Flint et al submitted manuscript). Alternatively, the owls may simply be less territorial when not breeding.

On Madeira in the North Atlantic, subfossil remains have shown what happened to an insular scops owl that stopped migrating altogether. The recently described Madeira Scops Owl O mauli evolved much longer legs than Eurasian Scops Owl and a largely terrestrial lifestyle. It may have become extinct as recently as 600 years ago. When humans arrived on Madeira, they altered habitats and introduced mammalian predators that the owls would have been ill equipped to deal with (Rando et al 2012). In the Azores, the slightly smaller São Miguel Scops Owl O frutuosoi survived until at least 49 BC (based on radiocarbon dating) and more likely until Europeans arrived. It was also a weak flier, spending most of its time on the predator-free floor of the once extensive Azorean laurisilva forests (Rando et al 2013). 

Cyprus Scops Owl challenges many of our ideas about what constitutes a species. Two important vocalisations differ from Eurasian Scops Owl, and yet its mtDNA hardly differs at all. Its plumage is subtly distinct but its structure is not. Large numbers of Eurasian Scops migrate through Cyprus, and yet it remains distinct. Clearly, this taxon represents something more interesting than the various subspecies of Eurasian Scops. It certainly deserves much closer attention than it has received up to now.

Cyprus Scops Owl breeds at remarkably high densities; its population has been estimated at 4000-8000 pairs (Snow & Perrins 1998). Evening birders in parks, around villages and in lightly wooded areas in Cyprus, can hardly fail to notice it. The same cannot be said of Pallid Scops Owl O brucei of the Middle East and Central Asia. In city parks, its inconspicuous sounds are easily lost in the traffic. Even in dry wadis when the wind lies still, a birder’s footsteps can drown out its sounds. If ever there was an owl that requires careful listening then Pallid Scops is surely it.