Scottish Owl Centre

10/01/2025

Job Vacancy!! Zeus the Eurasian Eagle Owl would like to announce that the Scottish Owl Centre is looking for a new Receptionist to work full-time or part-time, welcoming our visitors, managing our gift shop and answering phone enquiries. They can be any age from 18 to 60+, with a confident and friendly personality, some experience of cash handling and able to cope with quiet days and busy days. All training will be given. The position would be from February until October either 3 or 5 days a week including at least one weekend day and 5-7 hours a day, according to our opening hours. If interested contact us with a CV on [email protected], or via the contact form at www.scottishowlcentre.com

08/01/2025

Today Trystan found this frozen owl pellet lying on top of the snow in the middle of the centre. It must be tough hunting at the moment for the two wild Barn Owls that visit us, with ice and snow obscuring prey. But the size of this pellet implies hunting wasn't too bad last night after all. (Also a picture of our handsome male African Barn Owl just because he was looking great (over his shoulder) today) 🦉

04/01/2025

❗Notice for Visitors Today ❗

Altai is here with some important advice for anyone planning to visit us today:

The Centre has now re-opened for weekends in January, and so is open today. However, our Centre is all outdoors and with so much rain and snow fall, many of our pathways are very slippery underfoot. The driveway into Polkemmet Country Park is also very icy, still, particularly towards the carpark end - so please take great care whilst driving in.

Our staff have been salting the paths throughout the Centre over the course of the morning - but if you are intending to visit, please be advised of the path conditions. Please do wear sensible and weather-appropriate footwear, and be mindful as you make your way around the Centre today.

Birds like our beautiful Altai, the Siberian Eagle Owl, have their 'snow shoes and crampons' built-in 😜 - but we humans don't! 😆🦉

02/01/2025

Happy New Year to all our followers from all of us and our owls! It's been a very snowy one here but we're looking forward to welcoming visitors back on Saturday. We're open every weekend in January 11.30am-2pm with our indoor flying display at 12.30pm. Altai the Western Siberian Eagle Owl suggests you wrap up warm as you may not be quite as adjusted to the cold as she is!

03/12/2024

Our young female Short-eared Owl was very obliging posing for a photo for Trystan while he was on the food run this afternoon. Note the SOC closed leg ring/band 😎

01/11/2024

Callanish, our mischievous male Snowy Owl, is here with an important note for our visitors 🦉❗

As of today, 01.11.2024, the Scottish Owl Centre has shifted to our Winter opening hours 🥶❄️

The Centre will operate as follows:

NOVEMBER:
Monday to Friday - CLOSED
Saturday & Sunday - open 11.30am - 2.00pm, with 1 Flying Display at 12.30pm.

(Last entry on weekend days is 1 hour before closing, i.e. 1pm)

DECEMBER - CLOSED. However, during December we will still accept bookings for our private experiences (Owl Encounters, Photoshoots etc.) and booked groups consisting of 15+ people.

26/10/2024

Hi all! 😊🦉

Just a little post to let you all know that our 2025 'A Parliament of Owls: Best of Bubo' Calendar is now available to buy in our online shop! There will also be some copies available in our on-site Gift Shop for visitors to the Centre 😊

I have attached the link to the calendar in our Online Shop with this post! Thanks again to everyone who participated in the vote and helped us to choose this year's photo set! We've ended up with another beautiful calendar - as always! 🥰 We hope you guys love it, too!

https://www.thescottishowlshop.co.uk/photo-merch/scottish-owl-centre-2025-calendar-a-parliament-of-owls-best-of-bubo

18/10/2024

Well, the votes have been tallied throughout the album and these were the 13 top-voted photographs, as chosen by all of you! Once again, we've compiled a stunning photo calendar for 2025 😍

Thank you to everyone who helped us to choose the final photo set by casting your votes. Now, all that's left to do is put in the print order and wait for delivery! 😄

As always, the calendar will be available for sale on our Online Shop & in our on-site Gift Shop at the Centre 🦉 We'll let you know once the calendars arrive so that anyone who's interesting in supporting our lovely owls by purchasing one can get their orders in!

Thanks again for voting and have a lovely evening, everyone 😄

17/10/2024

Voting for your favourite photos for our 2025 SOC Calendar will be ending tomorrow evening. We will be tallying up which photos stacked up the highest number of likes 👀... Then, we'll post an update on our Facebook again tomorrow with the final set of 13 'Best of Bubo' photos which will be appearing in next year's calendar! :) Thanks so much to everyone who has voted so far - if you haven't got around to casting your votes quite yet, best do so quickly! Time is running out 😶😜

(The voting album is pinned to the top of our social feed, in our 'featured' posts section.)

15/10/2024

The EXTREME OWLS! theme flying display 3rd species is the humble Tawny Owl (in this case Tony). Their habitat should be woodland, not very extreme you may think, but the Tawny Owl has successfully integrated into URBAN life, moving into villages, towns, and cities across their range. Trystan explained that he's heard the tell-tale 'twit-twoo' hoot while walking down Princes Street in Edinburgh, and there is a Tawny Owl nestbox in the grounds of the British Museum in London! Living in an urban habitat is pretty extreme, considering the unnatural hazards such as traffic and noise, buildings and pollution. Perhaps the biggest hazard is poison though, with many people in urban lives using rodenticide to rid themselves of problems with mice and rats. Owls are good at catching live mice, but of course will readily eat carrion, so rodents killed by poison make a nasty poisoned meal for the urban owl. Please, don't use 'rat' poison, and pass on to everyone you know not to use it. There are other options like snap-traps, and if recent surveys are true that Tawny Owls are moving into urban areas away from rural countryside, they will happily control the rodents for you, for free! Don't poison their meals, welcome Tawny Owls into your town! 🦉

15/10/2024

Trystan's EXTREME OWLS! themed flying display went well yesterday for its premier. The idea is to present owls that live in extreme environments where you wouldn't expect an owl to live. Of the 3 birds, one correct guess was of course a Snowy Owl (Callanish was pretty good). The opening act as it were, though, was a Pharaoh's Eagle Owl from the deserts of Africa and the Middle East. (Tehuti was less confident but did some flights and a pounce so a good starting point). So hoo was the third owl? What was the third 'extreme' environment? 🤔🤓🦉

15/10/2024

Behind the scenes pics of some of the birds on today's photo workshop with Dean Bricknell ; Tony the Tawny loves these adventures into the woods; Mac the Short-eared Owl always looked ready to go-go-go; Rubi the newbie White Faced Owl and new kid Aspen the Tengmalm's (or Boreal) Owl made their workshop debuts. 🙂

13/10/2024

13/10/2024

** VOTING IS NOW CLOSED, the final 13 photographs have been chosen! :) **

It's that time of year again! Time to vote for which photos you'd like to appear in the SOC 2025 'A Parliament of Owls' Calendar: 'Best of Bubo.'

This year's calendar theme is casting the spotlight on the beautiful owls who are member of the 'Bubo' genus. This includes Eagle Owls, Horned Owls, Snowy and Fishing Owls! Any who have 'Bubo' in their Latin name.

Vote by hitting '👍' or '❤️' on your favourite photos in the album. The 13 highest liked photos (12 months + front cover image) will be the ones to feature within our 2025 photo calendar. Once printed, it will be available for sale in our on-site Gift Shop and our online shop!

As always, the photos have been taken by our own staff here at the Scottish Owl Centre 🦉 We very much look forward to seeing the highest-rated photos - as chosen by you, all of our lovely followers and visitors! 😄

07/10/2024

A few days ago we were pleased to receive a pair of Sunda Scops Owls to the centre, after the species being absent for several months. There's a fair chance these are the last pair of the species in the UK now, but with some luck perhaps they will breed next year. Being so precious, we will move eggs into an incubator and hopefully if fertile, hatch and rear in a creche set-up. Looking at the back of the owl you can see why they get their other common name of the Collared Scops Owl. 🤓

25/09/2024

Aspen, our home bred Tengmalm's Owl (aka Boreal Owl) has grown from a cute wee owlet through his scruffy teenage weeks into a handsome young owl. Before he hatched, his Dad died and his Mum would have abandoned the eggs, so Trystan put them in an incubator in his house. Aspen was the only successful hatch and Trystan has been a proud doting Dad ever since. Aspen has enjoyed discovering the world and meeting our visitors at the reception desk and has now graduated to his own aviary.

04/09/2024

Below the roof of our education area, we have a wild Barn Owl nest box which remains blocked up over the summer to deter the Jackdaws from using it and stressing the aviary owls nearby and messing up the education area with their droppings. The other day Trystan decided it was time to unblock the box and found a wild Barn Owl feather on the ground below. He hoped our wild house guest hadn’t been put off by finding the box still closed up for summer! Then the next day he found another feather below the nestbox. It’s modelled in the photo against Jet the melanistic Barn Owl for contrast.

04/09/2024

Our Kookaburra chose to sit out and enjoy the 'Scottish sunshine'! 🌧🌧🌧🌧🌦🌧🌧🌧