Scottish Owl Centre

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Scottish Owl Centre

The Scottish Owl Centre is the home to Scotland's largest collection of owls.
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Located in Polkemmet County Park, it is both a fun and educational day out for the whole family.

16/08/2024

We were deeply saddened yesterday to learn of the sudden passing of the great owl aviculturist Enrico Albertini. Enrico has been a good friend to us here at the Scottish Owl Centre for many years, exchanging birds, advice and knowledge and a good bit of humour, and we had good hopes and plans for doing so for the future as well. It is only just over a year since Enrico and his wife visited us here and Trystan greatly enjoyed the stimulating discussion on owl taxonomy, behaviour, vocalisation, husbandry etc. Over his life Enrico achieved some incredible 'firsts', such as the first breeding of Pel's Fishing Owls and others. Not only did he work with captive breeding of owls, but Ural Owls that he bred were contributed to the release project reintroducing the species into the Austrian Alps. His work was and will remain truly inspirational. Our sympathies go to his wife and family, and all who knew him. He will be greatly missed.
(Photos: Enrico from a post by Pierre de Chabannes; Enrico and his wife with Rod and Niccy when they visited last summer; Trystan's pic of Vermiculated Fishing Owls in our aviary, the male of which came from Enrico.)

09/08/2024

We're in the Times and Metro newspapers this morning, with the Tengmalm's/Boreal owlet trying out some camouflage in our gift shop 🙂🦉pics by Katie as always 😁

06/08/2024

Trystan was out and about acclimatising the youngest member of the team to the big wide world yesterday. This wee nugget is a baby Tengmalm's Owl just a few weeks old and raised by Trystan in his house after his/her owl Dad died🙂

04/08/2024

Today Trystan was meeting and greeting visitors on International Owl Awareness Day, wearing a t-shirt showing the shape of an owl made up of the words for 'owl' in 170 different languages from around the world. Visitors to the centre could pick out the words from their own languages. Of the people he spoke to, we had Eule, coruja, búho, उल्लू ulloo, uil, hibou, tylluan, sowa and of course, owl. 🙂🦉

27/07/2024

Here are a few late breeding season pics from the last few days, taken by Trystan. First the chilled out Dad American Barn Owl perched in front of the nestbox, getting a bit of peace from the owlets! His mate is standing in the box with the youngsters napping next to her. The other pics are of Long-eared Owl owlets. The two older ones are from our established pair, owlets number 53 and 54 from that female no less! The single owlet looking out of the nestbox is from the new pair that arrived this year and got straight to business, producing fertile egg just a fortnight after arriving. 🙂

12/07/2024

It's been a good year for breeding Long-eared Owls here this year, and today we rung/banded another owlet. This time it belongs not to our regular breeding pair (who have reared 7 of their own this year), but to a second pair we took in a couple of months ago. They came from a rough situation and we thought they'd take a year to recover, moult, and get into good condition. Nope. After 2-3 weeks here they were incubating, and here we have their big healthy owlet. There must be something in the water here. 😄

12/07/2024

The young Short-eared Owl we bred this year treated us to some good views of her recently, as she had a little father and daughter time (he's the pale one) before the public came in. Most of the time she stays in the undergrowth with her mother until the humans are all gone, but dad is much braver and relaxed around us. Once she was sure dad was ok with us and it was safe, she did a little flight practice around the aviary.

02/07/2024

COUNTRY CAFE LATE OPENING JULY AND AUGUST! You may not have the culinary tastes of the Great Horned Owl featured in our Great Horned Howff education booth, but if, like him, you're feeling peckish after visiting our beautiful owls, you'll be delighted to know that the Country Café opposite is now open until 7pm! Owner Jade may not cater for the Great Horned Owl's diet but she will definitely have something tasty for you!

26/06/2024

Time to spill the beans on our best kept secret of the year. We have successfully bred a Short-eared Owl here at the Scottish Owl Centre for the second time! 🥰 Now that the owlet is learning to fly in the public aviary we thought it's only a matter of time before she's spotted by an eagle eyed visitor on a quiet day, so we should 'fess up!
As the birds can be quite sensitive we wanted to get through the busy periods of Easter and school visits before making an announcement, just to make sure the owlet would make it this far. Fortunately even the 96 school kids visiting the centre yesterday didn't phase the parents or youngster now it's older.
The pair are very secretive when choosing a nest site. Once again they nested under the tall sedge grass in the rear of the aviary, but about six feet away from their last successful site. A single owlet hatched and this time was reared by the parents rather than by staff. It's possible the cool wet weather at Easter caused any further eggs to fail, but the female eats any eggshell so no unhatched eggs remain to give us a clue as to clutch size. Putting all their efforts into a single owlet was sensible though and paid off.
The owlet is very dark, making us think that it's a female, as they are typically darker coloured than the males, and the owlet is the spitting image of the mother (but hasn't yet grown the short 'ear' tufts). S/he is growing up fast and is now learning to fly when the centre is closed and nobody is about. She will stay with her parents until later this year, around autumn or early winter, before she moves on to a new home. We'll share photos and videos as the weeks go on and she develops into a beautiful member of her species. 🦉
*Before anyone comments or messages, no, this bird is not for sale or available. We have a plan. Our focus must be on attempting to set up a breeding program with multiple successful pairs before any more are available for hand rearing and imprinting. This will not be an easy task, and one we will be considering carefully over time. Working with other partners, with priority to those who already have Short-eared Owl/s, and with SSPCA/RSPCA, we hope to find birds that were perhaps injured and unreleasable, but with as close to 100% fitness as possible, to pair with birds we breed here. Having an aviary as similar to ours as possible is also a priority, as this design has clearly been successful. The aviary is long and wide and planted at the sheltered rear with tall sedge tussocks. Hopefully now we know how to better manage the established sedge to allow for access underneath, the birds will breed more regularly and with larger broods, but we (and they) are learning more each year. Fingers crossed for next year. 🤞🦉

25/06/2024

It's with great sadness that we have to announce the death of wee Poncho, the Tropical Screech Owl. He was 14 years old and one of the last of the original trained flying display team who moved with us from our previous location in Kintyre. He came to us in Campbeltown as a newly hatched owl in 2010 and has been much loved by staff and visitors alike ever since. Although the smallest member of our ambassador owls, weighing in at just 120g at his heaviest, he was always much more than just the token small owl for children to hold. Poncho was an integral part of the flying displays, zooming around our arena over and through audiences, helping raise conservation awareness for his species and the importance of the 'little guy' as much as the larger and more obvious owls such as Eagle and Snowy Owls. Despite his social nature with staff, volunteers, schools, and public, he still held his instinctive behaviours as a bird of prey and once dispatched a butterfly mid-air in one of the flying displays then brought it down to the bench to eat. Trystan narrated the act blow-by-blow to mixed reactions from the audience! Out of public duties he was a sociable wee soul who loved to be in our company, just to hang out, watch the world go by, maybe watch his fave nature program 'Super Powered Owls', or sing along with Freddie Mercury at Wembley. A tiny bird with a big heart and big personality, he leaves a big hole in our team and our hearts and will be missed. ❤️

23/06/2024

Our three young Barred Owls found a nice shady spot from the warm afternoon sun today.

17/06/2024

Long-eared Owl nest check day again yesterday, and two big healthy owlets bring our female's total to 54 owlets in 8 seasons (7 just this year). She could have just stopped with the first clutch of 5 earlier this year but she chose to go again in the other nestbox. Father's Day credits go to her 3rd husband ('having worn the first two out', as Trystan says in his talks) for taking on duties raising and supervising the first set of fledglings while she incubated the second batch. 🤓🦉

29/05/2024

A few owlets from today. The Barking Owl youngster is getting bolder and looking less frightened whenever Trystan goes near; one of the three Barred Owl fledglings looking a little bit damp after one of the heavy showers; and finally the terrible twosome that are the Northern Hawk Owlets. 🙂

28/05/2024

Groot, the European Scops Owl, was out and about meeting the public and inspecting the Centre for a while today. A Meet 'n Groot. He decided that Northern Hawk Owlets were interesting to watch, the Short-eared Owl was scary, but the Western Siberian Eagle Owl should bow down to his mighty prowess in battle. 💪🤔😄

26/05/2024

'I was gonna come out to play today but it's raining. A lot. So no.' - The first of our 3 Barred Owlets aborted fledging today, and just as well as it would have been snorkelling. 😆

26/05/2024

Today we ringed/banded the first of our European Scops owlets of the year. The second clutch has just begun hatching so we'll be ringing these tiny owls again in another week and a bit.

20/05/2024

So we've been keeping a little secret. Well it's not so little any more... I am pleased to confirm that we have bred a Barking Owl for the first time in Scotland and are only the second facility to breed the species outside Australasia! Our Barking Owl parents chose to focus their first attempt on one out of four fertile eggs. The single owlet has benefited from all the attention and all of the food, and yesterday fledged from the nestbox out into the aviary. The owlet is around 7 weeks old now and looks strong and healthy. Between trail camera and nestbox camera footage Trystan has noted some interesting behaviour including a family meal time with Dad on the left, Mum on the right and baby in the middle, the sharing of food between them and both parents feeding pieces of food to the fledgling. We haven't seen this documented in Barking Owls before, so if you know of anyone who has or anywhere published please let us know.
The fledgling Barking Owl can already get up onto perches and just look at those feet!
Due to the sensitive nature of the birds (stressed parents!) we have kept their section of the Owl Centre closed to the public, but will trial a soft opening during quiet weekdays very soon. In the meantime video clips will be displayed on the screen in our Education Area showing how the breeding has progressed and how the owlet is developing in coming days and weeks. 😃🥳🦉🦉🦉

02/05/2024

Trystan gave a presentation and Q&A session for a group of 50 Dutch students here at the Centre yesterday. They had some good questions and it was good to see the interest from the next generation of biologists. 🤓

30/04/2024

Fetlar the Snowy Owl is enjoying her well earned seasonal break after working the winter season of what seems like 9 months - but was probably 7.

26/04/2024

African Marsh Owls, like their relatives the Short-eared Owl, are ground nesting birds. In our aviaries we try to recreate the habitat they use in the wild with tall grasses, sedges, and rushes. They tear off blades of grass to line a shallow scrape in the ground just like our Short-eared Owl does too. With the weather being so wet this year some of our birds that began nesting early found Easter cooler and a lot wetter than usual, and our Marsh Owl has made two nests and laid a single egg in each, but both have failed. Hopefully now the temperatures are rising and rain drying up enough for a third attempt. What happens with our captive birds reflects what happens to the wild ones too though, with changing weather and increasing rainfall causing more flooding in areas essential for ground nesting birds.

17/04/2024

Flying Zeus the Eurasian Eagle Owl in the public display yesterday, Trystan added to his usual talk material the tragic story of Flaco the EEO that lived in Central Park, New York, for around a year after his aviary was vandalised at Central Park Zoo. When he said that Flaco was sadly found dead last month there was a loud cry of sorrow from two members of the audience. He was momentarily surprised as he doesn't usually get that response. After the display they explained that they had seen Flaco themselves while walking in Central Park last year. They remembered seeing his remarkable eyes through the trees. They hadn't heard that he had died so were quite upset. I think this shows how far travelled the fame and story of this bird has become. We also include in our talks a plea to everyone to pass on the message to NOT use rat poison to get rid of rodents. We believe this is an important message and such a simple change of human behaviour that could have such a big effect on not only owls. May the legacy of Flaco be a safer urban and rural world for all inhabitants, human, bird and animal. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/.../what-flaco-the.../...

01/04/2024

Cali, our stunning American Barn Owl, is here with a little reminder for our visitors 🙂🦉
As of today, the Scottish Owl Centre will be moving back to our Spring/Summer opening hours 🌷🌻

The Centre is open 7 days from 10.30am - 5.00pm.
Last entry (as usual!) is 1 hour before closing, so at 4.00pm.

Our 'Meet the Birds' talk will be back at 11.30am, daily.

The Flying Display times are now 1.30pm and 3.30pm, daily.

We are also right in the middle of our breeding season and so many of our aviary pairs are more sensitive to noise and disturbance at this time of year. On behalf of our owls, we'd be very grateful if our visitors were to bear this in mind during your visit. We don't want to risk any newly-hatched owlets or developing eggs potentially being abandoned! 🦉

26/03/2024

Yesterday Trystan saw some fascinating things in the collection behind the scenes at the National Museums Collection Centre, including a specimen labelled Asio madagascariensis, some Ninox strenua, an egg from the extinct Tasmanian Emu, and amazing irridescent plumage of Birds of Paradise, collected over a hundred years ago. As sad as it is to see them like this, it is a reminder that we should appreciate and preserve the natural world, before it is only found in voucher collections.

26/03/2024

Yesterday Trystan headed to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh to help a visiting owl researcher with their morphometrics study of Short-eared Owls 🤓

24/03/2024

After years of us thinking that our Great Horned Owl, Hudson, is a bit big to be a boy... Hudson has produced an egg! 'He' was looking rather uncomfortable in the aviary a few days ago and hadn't changed by Friday, so a vet appointment was arranged to get a check up. The behaviour resembled a female having difficulty with laying an egg, and that's exactly what it was. The vet was able to remove the egg safely and Hudson is on 'maternity leave' back at the centre. 🤓

10/03/2024

Happy Mother's Day to our Northern Hawk Owl, with her second egg laid today, our Ural Owl with her first, and our Barking Owl with her four eggs too. Honorary mention to matriarch of them all, our Long-eared Owl (not on camera) who is three quarters way through incubating what may be her 50th egg (not all in one year obviously!) 🙂

07/03/2024

More egg-citement at the centre today! On the live nestbox cam, our Northern Hawk Owl laid her first egg of the season. Trystan happened to be standing next to the screen and saw movement so looked up, just as she stood up and left the box and an egg! She was back in the box a few minutes later and was seen plucking feathers for her brood patch and turning the egg over. It will be interesting to see when the next egg will arrive (1 - 2 days according to the books) and maybe even eventually see them hatching. If all goes well they will be hatching during the Easter holidays, so visitors can see the screen and hear about what's going on in our Meet The Birds 'chick and egg chat' feature daily in our covered education area. 🦉🥚

07/03/2024

Today when Trystan needed to do some maintenance to the Barking Owl nestbox camera (while the female was out of the box) he checked on the eggs and amazingly there were FOUR! The species usually only lays two eggs. Then when he candled them there in the box (shone light through them to show up any veins or embryo development) he found that ALL FOUR are fertile! We have a pair of over-achievers! Trystan then left her to go back in the box and checked a little later to make sure she had returned to her eggs. The phone camera pic of the nestbox cam screen is poor quality compared to the image on the monitor itself but you can see she is sitting comfortably once again. Now the camera system is all set up he should be able to set the dvr to record any movement in the box. The park has some essential power work tomorrow so once the power is back on he'll set up the dvr. Very egg-citing indeed! 🤓

02/03/2024

New project in action! Over the last couple of weeks Trystan has been fitting nestbox cameras into 3 of our aviaries. This year we have screens in the centre showing what's going on inside the nestboxes of the Northern Hawk Owls, Ural Owls, and excitingly, our Barking Owls who are already incubating! In the coming days we expect all 3 boxes will be occupied and hopefully we will see right through incubation to hatch and rearing of owlets, before the youngsters fledge and we can see them out exploring the aviaries. Trystan's still tweaking the tech but all being well he can get the dvr's recording activity so he can make a 'highlights' video of the season to upload too 🙂

23/02/2024

Taking part in scientific research is an important aspect of our work at the centre, and on Wednesday our Tony the Tawny Owl once again helped a team of researchers from the University of Glasgow who are studying the hunting habits of urban Tawny Owls in the wild in Scotland. Tony was fitted with a harness holding an accelerometer, which was monitored and recorded as he moved and pounced on 'prey' on the ground of his aviary and the display arena. The team will then be able to compare the readings they see from the wild owls they fit the equipment to. Last Spring they fitted 15 wild Tawnies, but Tony helped them interpret the recordings further by being a test subject again this week. Extra mouse for Tony this week! 🤓🦉

Address

The Scottish Owl Centre, Polkemmet Country Park
Bathgate
EH470AD

Telephone

+441501228184

Website

http://www.scottishowlcentre.com/

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Videos

Pumpkins orange and candies round, Beneath sharp, constricting talons are found. Owls upon silent wings abound, And all the while, a shrieking sound... 😝🦉 Happy Halloween from our spooky little Sindar, the Long-eared Owl - and from the rest of us here at SOC, too! 🦇🎃 (leave the sound on if you wish to hear some amusing, and vaguely disconcerting, slo-mo Long-eared Owl calls! 😆 Very Halloween-appropriate 😂🎃)

Unbeknownst to us - it appears that our little Long-eared Owl has trained in the ways of the Jedi 😉🤣 May the Force be with you, young Padawan 🦉 At this stage, owlets - particularly the faster developing species - are engaging and testing various things in their environment (as this little one demonstrates wonderfully with his newly-discovered 'strawsaber' 😆.) This aids in figuring out how to pounce; grip; tear with the beak; co-ordinate foot-to-beak movements; test their strength & balance; and practice honing their highly acute senses... There is so much for them to learn! Owlets are incredibly playful to a degree, but their 'play' is very practical and a steep learning curve for them, too! #scottishowlcentre #youngpadawan #amazingowls #longearedowl #owlet

Hudson, the Great Horned Owl, was showing off some of his best hooting on an outing with one of our Keepers around the Centre the other day!🦉 These fearsome owls, often nicknamed 'Tigers of the Air,' are found throughout America and Canada. The Great Horned Owl's territorial hoot is an iconic sound, carrying an intrinsic 'creatures of night' quality to it - exactly what people expect to hear in mysterious, wild, haunting, peaceful or mystical film moments... This call very often features in film & TV as part of a night-time ambience... Sometimes, it seems, Great Horned Owls even manage to make it all the way into Space and have been known to feature on the soundtracks to episodes of Star Trek! 😜😂

Good news! Our 'Owl Babies' Calendar for 2023 has landed in our online shop 😁 Here is a flip-through of the final calendar, featuring the 13 baby owl photographs chosen by all of you, our lovely followers! 🥰🦉 For those who are interested in purchasing our 2023 calendar, the link below will take you directly to the product in our Online Shop: https://www.thescottishowlshop.co.uk/photo-merch/owl-babies-calendar-2023

Sound on for this one! Our beautiful young Barred Owl girl, Sequoia, has been finding her voice lately 😍 The Barred Owl is a North American species known for its unmistakeable call, often described as sounding a bit like they're saying: 'Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?' (although if you're Sequoia, currently it's more of a 'who-who-who-who-who... cooks for you?' She sounds a little like a stuck record whilst she practises - but she'll get there, bless her! 😂) Occasionally, she also forgets that she was being all adult-like and defers to her high-pitched, baby 'contact call' at the end - which can make for a very amusing finishing note! 🙈 Not this time, though! 😄

Some uplifting news this week! For anyone who has been following Little Wildie's story - the young Tawny trapped at the bottom of a barrel - he has been released back to the wild! 🥳😊 We had been monitoring Little Wildie's improvement in body condition before taking the decision that he was ready to graduate into a conditioning aviary. Once in an aviary, we were able to assess his flight condition, too. Very quickly it became apparent that the youngster had come on leaps and bounds from the state he first arrived in, and he was getting stronger and feistier by the day! Next, all we needed was a relatively mild night of dry weather for his re-release! On Monday evening, our Keepers returned to the area where he was originally discovered and picked up by a concerned member of the public. We did some reconnaissance within the vicinity to find an area of suitable Tawny Owl habitat to release him back to, an area that would give him his best chance to thrive... We found the ideal spot, an area that we also knew had recently been vacated by its prior Tawny Owl inhabitants. Once the location was settled - all that was left was for our Head Keeper, Trystan, to set the feisty little murderbird loose! 😄 Good luck, Little Wildie! 🦉 It has been truly lovely to see and read all of the support and well-wishes that have come in since we first shared Little Wildie's story on our pages, and we're overjoyed to be able to share his happy outcome with all of you now! 😊 #tawnyowl #wildlife #strixaluco #owls #owlsofbritain #owlsofeurope #owlsoftheworld #raptors #rescuestory #birdsofprey #amazingowls #owlsinthewild #nocturnalcreatures #beautifulowls #rescuesuccess #scottishowlcentre #goodnews #happyendings

Join us today for this thrilling epic. Baby Barred Owl, Sequoia, faces off in a thrilling battle with her nemesis... The Doorstop! 😂🦉 Who will prevail? Our young owlet has heart and determination on her side... But her adversary is indestructible! A battle that could rage for decades... Or at least until she gets bored and some new perceived 'foe' comes onto the scene! 😆😍

Love is in the air! Our male Turkmenian eagle owl Apollo has been trying to win over his potential mate Kara. She’s warming up to him and has been enjoying the breakfast he brings her each morning 🙂

Our baby snowy is very mobile now! Albeit a little wobbly 😂

Little close up of Tony the Tawny owl 🙂

You may have seen Nala in the news recently. She’s doing very well and even did her very first flight to the glove!

Our snowy owls have become parents! The owlets are still very small and still tucked underneath mum but their calls can be heard from outside the aviary

Our male Short-eared Owl loves to explore the new aviary. He likes to sit on the post at the front of the aviary when the centre is closed, watching the crows or other owls. He's a very curious young fellow :)