This year, to celebrate Finnature’s 30th anniversary, we decided to focus on Great Grey Owls – since these Owls have been a tremendous part of our history. During our annual Autumn meeting, we set up 30 artificial nesting platforms for Great Grey Owls in Oulu region! These boxes will help Great Grey Owls to find a safe nest site in the commercially harvested forests around Oulu area.

This was also a huge effort from our staff. In total, altogether 45 voluntary man-days were spent during this project: it included planning, building the nest boxes and preparing everything needed to put them up to trees, our chef preparing meals for our builders, locating suitable sites for the artificial nesting platforms and of course putting them up the trees. What a great effort and we thank our staff for it!

Great Grey Owl is a charismatic northern Owl and a highlight for many of our clients who come to visit Finland often just for this one bird. In nature, Great Grey Owls nest in old Goshawk nests but with old forests being more and more scarce, they might have difficulties in finding suitable nest sites. Sometimes we have even found them nesting on tree stomps, sometimes almost on the ground where they are very susceptible for predation! During years, we have luckily noticed that Great Grey Owls accept artificial nesting platforms quite easily.

Great Grey Owls can be seen during our birdwatching and photography tours almost every year. Their distribution is directly dependent on the distribution of their prey, voles – Great Grey Owls are vole specialists. They start breeding in April/May and the young ones fledge in June. During this time it is possible to observe the Owls from a safe distance. In some years, we also have Great Grey Owls in winter time. In winter, they often come out in the open fields to hunt for voles. This varies between years.

Check our birdwatching excursions and self-drive tours on our web shop if the Great Grey Owl is on your wish list!

Kirjoittaja pirita