NON-JNDIGEXOUS BRITISH BIRDS. 109 



Family STRIGID.E. Genus Nyctala. 



Sub-family BU BONING. 



TENG MALM'S OWL. 



Nyctala tengmalmi {Gmeliti). 



(British : Rare nomadic autumn migrant.) 



Single Brooded. Laying season, May and June. 



Breeding area : Northern Nearctic and Palaearctic 

 regions. Tengmalm's Owl breeds in the pine regions 

 south of the Arctic circle in Europe and Asia. It 

 breeds in Northern Scandinavia, in Lapland, Finland, 

 and Russia, to at least as far south as Orenberg. It 

 also breeds in the Alps and the Carpathians, but is not 

 yet proved to do so in the Pyrenees. Herr Hartert 

 states that it may probably breed in North-eastern 

 Prussia. Eastwards it breeds in the pine forests of 

 Siberia to the Pacific. In the New World it breeds 

 right across the continent, as far north as the Arctic 

 circle, from Alaska to Labrador. 



Breeding habits : Tengmalm's Owl is for the most 

 part a resident in the pine forests of the Arctic regions. 

 But little is known of its nesting economy, and for what 

 little information we do possess we are indebted to the 

 researches of Wolley and Wheelwright, who met with 

 tills bird in Lapland. Of its pairing habits nothing 

 definite is known, but it probably mates for life as so 

 many other Owls are known to do. This Owl appears 

 not to make any nest, but to take possession of the 

 deserted hole of a Black Woodpecker or other cavity 

 in a tree trunk : whilst Wolley found it occupying the 

 hollowed logs which the peasants place for the Golden- 

 eyes to breed in. No nest of any kind is made, and the 

 eggs rest upon the powdered w^ood or the layer of pellets 

 and food refuse cast up by the parent birds. 



