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25
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skeptični. ’Ti momci mora
da su u zabludi’, pomišljali
su“ kaže Milan. Tokom go-
dina, s prebrojavanjima na
svakih 15 dana preko zime,
nađeno je između 400 i 762
sova utina na glavnom trgu
u Kikindi (najveći broj na
jednom stablu bio je 165).
U Kikindi je 2011. održana
Međunarodna konferencija,
a skeptični biolozi koji su
dovodili u pitanje rezultate
istraživanja, i sami su tada
prebrojali više od 300 sova
na drveću. Kikinda i njena
okolina danas su dokazano
najveće urbano zimovalište
malih ušara na svetu.
Ubrzo je posmatranje
sova, s ljudima koji dolaze
na jedinstveni foto safari,
postalo središte male ali
rastuće industrije tematskog
turizma. Počeli su dolaziti
ljudi poput Dejvida Lindoa,
britanskog putopisca i tu-
rističkog novinara koji dva
puta godišnje dovodi grupe
ljubitelja ovih ptica u obila-
zak grada i okoline. „Prili-
kom mog prvog putovanja“,
kaže Lindo, „Video sam oko
1000 sova utina na području
oko Kikinde.“ Dok je deo
kikindskih sova s domaćeg
područja, izgleda da veliki
broj njih dolazi iz Rusije i
Ukrajine, jer, za razliku od
obeleženih sova iz Poljske
i Nemačke, gostujuće sove
u Vojvodini nisu bile obe-
ležene. Milan i njegov tim
naučili su kako da markiraju
ptice i nadaju se da će tako
pribaviti više podataka o
tome odakle su. „Da ste
ukrajinska sova koja nad-
leće područje i da vidite da
dvadeset sova sleće u grad,
sledili biste ih“, kaže on.
Zanimljivo je da su i ritske
e
From mid-November to
mid-March, hundreds of
these birds can be found
roosting in the trees of the
Austro-Hungarian-built
town of Kikinda. The owls
seem to have chosen Kikin-
da for a few reasons—towns
tend to be warmer, they are
protected from the wind
by buildings and because
the region does not have
many trees, the best chance
of finding a place to roost
are in villages and towns.
“For them it’s a good strat-
egy to be in towns because
predation levels from other
animals is less,” says Milan.
“Owl species do not like
humans, because we kill
them, we poison them, we
spoil their breeding habitats
so they would stay away,
but then they can use all
the resources which we can
provide.”
It was Milan and his col-
leagues from university who
first noticed Kikinda’s owl
phenomena back in 2003.
“We looked through papers
and books and basically
they don’t say that roosts
can reach 200-250 birds,”
he said. “And we were like
‘okay, what to do?’ So we
decided to do the first ever
survey in 2003 to 2004. So
the first count was that win-
ter, where we had 67 roosts
and over 3000 birds counted
across the region. And we
were like ‘Wow.’” The young
scientists got in touch with
the world’s top owl experts
and started a long-eared
owls group email. “When
we started sharing our data,
many of these experts were
like, ‘these young guys must
be mistaken,’” he said. Over
the years, with counts now
done every 15 days during
the winter, between 400 and
762 long-eared owls can be
found in the main square in
Kikinda (the largest number
in one tree was 165). An in-
ternational conference was
in held in Kikinda in 2011,
and for those skeptical
165 sova na jednom
stablu je do sada
najveći zabeležen broj
e
165 owls roosting
in a single tree is
the largest number
recorded to date
Fotografija / Photography Bogdan Kosanović
