SCOPS OWL

With more than 80 accepted records, it would seem that Scops Owl is not the rarest of rarities. However, the spread of records is pretty evenly spread through to the 19th Century and a year with more than one record is unusual. Most records have come from the Northern Isles or the south-west of England, but there have been inland records, perhaps most famously, in recent years, the singing male at Thrupp, Oxfordshire in 2006 and 2007. Many, if not most, of the accepted records are for birds found dead or near death (exhausted), which is not surprising for a nocturnal bird, which is hard enough to see in its normal European range.