Spooky birds glow in the dark at West Lothian owl centre

Spooky owls glowed in the dark under UV light - as scientists found that younger feathers shine brighter.

Tengmalm Owls, six-year-old Alpha and six-month-old Pearl are lit by UV black light at Scottish Owl Centre

The Tengmalms owls, father Alpha, aged six, and daughter Pearl, aged six months, were examined in an aviary, at the Scottish Owl Centre in Bathgate, West Lothian.

Feather patterns glowed neon pink due to porphyrins - pigments in their feathers which are brighter when the birds are younger.UV light is used to assess their age.

The centre successfully bred the species for the first time last year, and had planned to examine all 50 breeds using UV light this year, before the coronavirus pandemic happened.

Head keeper Trystan Williams said: "What we have done with this is shone a UV light on the wings.

"The UV light shows pigment which makes it glow like that.

"In younger birds it is much brighter.

"It's a bit of fun and it helps with research."

He added: "We have 50 types of owl and 150 birds in total.

"This is a little torch we've got, we shine it on the feathers, we can use it in the aviary to do health checks.

"The older the feather, the less it will shine.

"As the birds moult, they grow new feathers which shine less than the old feather.

"Researchers are able to tell which feather is new, which tells them the age of the bird.

"There are lots of questions including whether owls can see in UV.

"We may see a little brown owl, but they may think it is pink.

"Hopefully we can work our way through the whole collection."

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.