Never seen them in the wild before. Yesterday my friend Helen had a surprise for me. In a walnut tree in their yard a pair of long-eared owls (asio otus/ransuil) have two chicks in an old magpie nest. Lovely to see them look down and even better to capture this scene. Helen and Hans: many thanks!

The long-eared owl is a medium-sized owl, 31–40 cm It has erect dark ear-tuft, which are used to make the owl appear larger to other owls.The female is larger in size and has darker colours than the male. The long-eared owl's brownish It is a nocturnal species, most easily seen - as here - perched in a tree in its daytime roost. There are about fifty thousand of this species in the whole world, of which some 6.000 pairs in The Netherlands.