Pallid Scops Owl, Al Hajar Mountains, Oman, October 2014
PALLID SCOPS OWL TORMENTED ME FOR YEARS! Back in May 1986 I was ordered back to my hotel at gunpoint in Turkey, while looking for the famous birds in Birecik tea garden, and told to leave town the next day. PKK Kurdish terrorists were active here at the time and the police were not keen on letting me and my friends stay around. Then followed many years of seeing nice photos taken in southern Israel combined with a failure to catch up with any of them. Happily I now see this bird every year and sometimes twice a year, in both Oman and Gujarat in northwest India. I even see them when I am looking for other things! This one was a particularly nice obliging bird, having perched in an unobscured spot in a large ancient acacia. I had been playing a tape of Omani Owl, which has Pallid Scops Owl calling in the background, just before dawn when this bird responded. I left it until daylight to start searching and was very happy to set eyes on it! There is nothing like a day roosting view of an owl!