From Cyryl Boryczko

Ural Owl (Strix uralensis), Niepołomice Forest, 26/12/2025.

I started this year without a single owl on my sighting list. During one of my spring birding trips, Michał Baran "promised" me that I would end the year with at least four species. He delivered. The Ural is my fourth owl in Poland, after the Pygmy Owl, Long-eared Owl, and Tawny Owl, and my fifth overall (I also added a Screech Owl in the USA). For Senior Ornithologist Assistant Aneta Boryczko, it was her first owl, and what an owl! After nearly three hours of fruitless searching in the Niepołomice Forest, luck smiled on us, and Michał spotted this beautiful bird from the car, near a thicket on the edge of the forest. Our joy was immense!

The Ural owl is one of the largest nesting owls in Poland. Only the Eurasian eagle owl and the great grey owl are larger. It is active both night and day. Literature indicates that it hunts primarily at dusk, but today we saw it hunt (though we don't know if it was successful) at high noon. It feeds primarily on small mammals, but birds, including even smaller owls, may also form part of its diet. Ural owl pairs bond for their entire lives, approximately 20 years, and these birds can aggressively defend their nests. Attacks on humans are even rare. The population in Poland is estimated at around 1,300-1,800 pairs, with a growing tendency.

Neat! Glad to see "mutant Barred owl with . . slight melanism?" has a name! Ural Owl!

I feel silly about how long it to me to recognize Barred, Tawny, and Ural were all so closely related. Maybe it was the large gaps in time between when I learned about them all they just felt more distinct. Also, the Barred is here in North America, and we don't have the Tawny or Ural, so they feel more "exciting" despite being rather similar. That also made some of my first exposure to Tawnies children's media, and the majority of Ural pictures I see make them look like chill stoners, so I have to constantly remind myself Tawnies and Urals are just as viciously territorial as Barreds. Brains are weird.