Beyond diurnal farmland bird indicators: sex‐related movement ecology of a nocturnal owl highlights the importance of grasslands, meadow orchards and woody landscape features

Farmland biodiversity is declining across Europe as agricultural intensification and landscape homogenisation continue to drive biodiversity loss. Conservation measures, such as targeted agri‐environmental schemes, aim to reverse this trend, but they are often based on the habitat requirements of diurnal species. By contrast, the role of farmland habitats for nocturnal wildlife remains poorly understood due to their elusive nature. To address this gap, we analysed GPS‐tracking data from 16 breeding Scops Owls Otus scops , a nocturnal owl associated with semi‐open landscapes that may also rely on traditional farmland mosaics, to evaluate movement behaviour and multiscale habitat selection in Slovenia. Scops Owl movement varied with time of night, environmental conditions and sex: males showed a pronounced midnight activity peak, whereas females' activity was distributed more evenly throughout the night. Step length increased with temperature and decreased with cloud cover, while activity increased with moonlight in females but not in males. Home‐ranges were similar between males and females overall (ca. 40 ha) and showed strong overlap within breeding pairs ( n = 5; ca. 80%). Habitat selection was broadly consistent across scales. Owls selected structurally complex woody landscape features, especially isolated trees and bushes, meadow orchards and hedgerows, which together represented ca. 12% of home‐ranges. Grasslands contained the highest number of GPS locations and accounted for ca. 27% of home‐ranges, but were used approximately in proportion to their availability, suggesting that they may function mainly as prey‐rich foraging patches when embedded near woody perches. By contrast, arable lands and fallow fields were used less than expected from their availability, despite arable lands being the most available habitat category, representing ca. 42% of home‐ranges. Overall, our results highlight the conservation value of grasslands and mature woody landscape features embedded within low‐intensity farmland mosaics for this umbrella species, aligning with habitat requirements of other taxa, such as bats and invertebrates. Finally, we emphasise the need to better integrate nocturnal species into farmland biodiversity research and agri‐environmental policy.