Page 54 - Animals of the Sakhalin Region in myths and legends

Owl, Eurasian pygmy owl

(Glaucidium passerinum)

A very small owl. Body length — 15–18 cm, wingspan — 32–39 cm, weight —
50–85 g. The physique is dense, the head seems large and round, there is a facial
disc, although not very well expressed. The activity is predominantly twilight and
nocturnal, but sometimes it screams and hunts during the day. The coloration is
mainly brown with light rounded streaks on top, the lower body is light with brown
streaks, the tail is striped. White specks on and around the facial disc form thin
concentric circles. The eyes are yellow, the beak is light.
Its food is mainly small mammals, mainly murine rodents (shrews, hamsters,
gray rats, lemmings and other voles, forest and house mice), as well as small
passerine birds.
The nesting area is island Sakhalin. It inhabits the entire territory of the island,
but extremely sporadically. In the nesting season, owls were recorded in the vicinity
of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Terpeniya, Lunsky and Nabilsky bays, and in autumn and
winter - near Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky, in the valley of the river. Darkness. Not
recorded on the Kuril Islands. General distribution - Europe and Asia.

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