How city living is persuading Glaswegian tawny owls to change their hunting habits

Built by humans and very much for humans, cities have nonetheless always attracted opportunistic animals keen to sample the delights of urban living.

Rats – not perhaps everyone’s favourite creatures – have proved particularly successful. However, in recent decades, they have been joined by a growing band of fauna that includes the likes of otters, foxes, kingfishers, peregrine falcons, and even badgers.

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Tawny owls are adapting to life in the city by changing their hunting tactics | Giuseppe Orlando

Now it seems the tawny owl – considered to be of “conservation concern” with its population falling by a third since the 1970s – is changing its habits in a bid to fit in. A nocturnal species, they normally use sound to hunt which is a problem in noisy urban areas.

However, after researchers fitted tracking devices to owls in Bearsden and Milngavie, they found the birds appear to be adapting to their new surroundings and hunting by sight alongside noisy but also brightly lit streets.

Good news for them and their human fans. We can perhaps expect to hear their musical cry more often. Not everyone will be pleased, however – one reason why city streets offer fine dining for tawny owls is that rats are on the menu.

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