Last week Wednesday (22.04) I joined a local ringer to check some nestboxes of Ural Owls near Joensuu. I didn't have high expectations since it is not a good owl year, and well yeah, the idea of handling such an owl species seemed surreal to me :) In total we checked five Ural Owl nestboxes, of which three were occupied. We caught the three females on the nest, and as it turned out, all of them were already ringed! The oldest one was a female of at least 6 years old already. Very good to know that the birds are so loyal to their breeding places, means that the conditions should be quite good there! The nests contained 1x 2 eggs and 2x 3 eggs.
The photos below don't need any explanation..:)
