The African scops owl found all over Sub-Saharan Africa, except the southern parts of South Africa, lives in most wooded areas, especially dry savannah, but not in dense forest.
Its daytime behaviour is inactive, roosting against a tree trunk, exactly what it is doing here in the Kruger National Park. The male and female communicate with slow regularity in their high-pitched insect-like purring calls heard at dusk and dawn. This soon becomes a familiar and welcome sound of any place blessed enough to have them around (Maclean, 1993).