Diurnal Owling in Munich

The Nymphenburg Park in Munich is known among birders and non-birders alike for Tawny Owls that often roost very close to the paths leading through the green spaces. You often see people on walks stopping under a few specific trees and peering into the foliage to check if the familiar birds are back at their daytime roosts. They are so well known that the individual owls even have names, although I forget them right after I was told what they are. I’m not sure if this was because I’m bad with names in general, or because they were the most stereotypical German names out there. On most of my short stays in Munich, I’ve also visited the park in the hope of getting some good views. I was lucky around half of the time, but never had a good camera with me so this time I went with the hope of getting some decent photos.

After passing the impressive palace, I started looking at the roost sites that I know of. I’m not aware of how many regular roost sites are known. In the beginning I was told of three, but by now other people who I met in the park showed me two further spots where the owls regularly while away the daylight hours. I left the first two roost empty-handed, but had a drowsy Tawny Owl peer down at me at the third tree I checked, an old and gnarly lime tree – exactly the type of tree which seems like the ideal owl roost site when you come across it in the forest.

The park didn’t offer much else of interest, but I did spend some time watching a Great Spotted Woodpecker and a Eurasian Coot with its rather funky-looking chicks. I think opinions are quite divided over the latter, with some people telling me that they find them really cute and others thinking they are exceedingly ugly. Maybe it’s the fact that they are chicks that make them more divise than birds like Marabou Storks (I’ve never heard anyone call those ‘cute’).

Owls are always great to see and even though this is easily the most common owl in Europe, seeing it this well is not that easy. I’m also kind of glad that I won’t have this nagging feeling that I should get better photos of this bird the next time I’m in Munich.