Owls will settle in the center of Vitebsk

On International Bird Day, celebrated on April 1, new birdhouses, tit-boxes, and owl-boxes appeared in the forest park area near the Summer Amphitheater. They were hung by employees of the regional committee for natural resources and environmental protection, students of VSGU named after P. Masherov, and third-graders of Secondary School No. 31 in Vitebsk, who are members of the "Winged Watch" club.

On International Bird Day, celebrated on April 1, new birdhouses, tit-boxes, and owl-boxes appeared in the forest park area near the Summer Amphitheater.

They were hung by employees of the regional committee for natural resources and environmental protection, students of VSGU named after P. Masherov, and third-graders of Secondary School No. 31 in Vitebsk, who are members of the club

"Winged Watch", which operates under the public association "Aхова птушак Бацькаўшчыны". While birdhouses and tit-boxes in the city's forest park areas are a common sight, this year the participants of the traditional event decided to experiment and installed two owl-boxes in honor of the long-eared owl - the "Bird of the Year-2015". As told by Gennady Gorlanov, chief specialist of the regional committee for natural resources and environmental protection, the location where the Dunai and Gapeev streams merge was chosen on the advice of ornithologists. The artificial nesting sites are hung at a height of over 6 meters, and scientists will subsequently observe which species of owls will inhabit them.

According to Vladimir Ivanovsky, Candidate of Biological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Ecology and Nature Protection at VSU named after P. Masherov, four species of owls inhabit Vitebsk: the long-eared owl, the grey owl, the little owl, and the Eurasian scops owl (the latter two species are listed in the Red Book). By the way, the size of the Eurasian scops owl allows it to nest in a birdhouse, and the bird got its name from the sounds it makes: "splyu-splyu" (sleep-sleep). The renowned researcher of the life of predatory birds dispelled the main myth about owls – that they have poor eyesight during the day and therefore hunt at night. In reality, their vision is normal. It's just that during daylight hours, owls prefer to sit motionless on branches: they do not want to be detected by other birds, which immediately flock together and attack the predator. In total, over 100 species of birds nest in the regional center.

On International Bird Day, about 2.5 thousand birdhouses, tit-boxes, and owl-boxes were installed in the Vitebsk region.

Sergey Lyashuk, "Vitebskiye Vesti"