**Acknowledgements**

In Malawi John Alder, Matthias Frhr. Von Bechtolsheim, and John Wilson kindly gave us some owl observations, and Clive Richard Barlow, John Clayton, and Solomon Jallow did the same in The Gambia. Wandi Touray was showing us several times Bao Bolon Pel's Fishing Owls in The Gambia and as always Alan Sieradzki sent us some old papers, we could not find in our forest library. An anonymous referee made constructive comments at the review stage which helped to improve the manuscript. We thank them all very warmly.
