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First publication out from our project!
First publication out from our project!
Our European-scale study, published in Biological Conservation, shows that traffic noise impairs owl nestbox occupancy and reproduction. Light pollution also impairs both traits, but its effect on reproduction changes based on road proximity, decreasing closer to roads.
This study is the result of a great European-wide collaboration, which led to the assemblage of our Scottish data with data from other 8 countries.
Many thanks to all participants who have kindly contributed!
Article available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2025.111533
BES Conference 2025
BES Conference 2025
In December, we brought some new exciting findings of our project to the BES (British Ecological Society) annual meeting in Edinburgh (Scotland, UK)!
By tracking owls' nighttime movements, we are finding that urban individuals prefer foraging in noisy roadside areas only when light levels are also high. This suggests that strong light may mitigate noise avoidance, resulting in the selection of noisier roadside areas when illumination is greatest.
More updates on this work will come in 2026, so stay tuned!
We are also very grateful to BES for featuring our findings in their online post, which you can read here: https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/tawny-owls-are-turning-to-street-lighting-to-help-them-hunt/
EOU Conference 2025
EOU Conference 2025
In August, we attended the EOU (European Ornithologists' Union) Conference at Bangor University (Wales, UK) and we presented our owl project.
Davide delivered a great and exciting plenary talk on urban birds, including owls, and the challenges they have to deal with.
I then showed some preliminary results on how Tawny Owls cope with roads, anthropogenic noise and light pollution when they move at night.
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