First record of Ural Owl Strix uralensis nesting on a steel tower

Abstract

Ural Owls Strix uralensis often use nest boxes, but there have been few reports of them using other man-made structures. We discovered a Ural Owl nest on a steel tower in a suburban area in Ibaraki Prefecture, central Japan, in May 2019. The nest had been built in a jointed part of the steel frame that supported the body of the tower, which was approximately 10 m-high. In this case, a neighboring shelterbelt seemed to provide the owls with leaf litter for the nest floor and hiding places for the parents and their fledglings.