Tawny Owl
I have been trying for years to find a Tawny Owl during the daytime that wasn't near-totally obscured by foliage. Then I was out for a walk at the weekend and spotted this one sitting bold as brass in a budding Rowan. You can see it is shedding a flight feather on the left side.
Tawny Owls come in two colour phases, but neither of them are actually tawny (ie orange or yellowish brown). This brown form is known as the rufous phase, and there is a much rarer grey phase, though there is probably a range of intermediates too. Males and females are indistinguishable on plumage but they make very different calls. Males make the drawn out "hooo-ooo-oo" while females respond with a sharp disyllabic "kew-ick". William Shakespeare wrote in Love's Labour's Lost "....Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit; Tu-who, a merry note". So Shakespeare seems to have been describing a pair of duetting Tawny Owls, as no Owl actually sings Tu-whit, Tu-who.
Tawny Owl
I have been trying for years to find a Tawny Owl during the daytime that wasn't near-totally obscured by foliage. Then I was out for a walk at the weekend and spotted this one sitting bold as brass in a budding Rowan. You can see it is shedding a flight feather on the left side.
Tawny Owls come in two colour phases, but neither of them are actually tawny (ie orange or yellowish brown). This brown form is known as the rufous phase, and there is a much rarer grey phase, though there is probably a range of intermediates too. Males and females are indistinguishable on plumage but they make very different calls. Males make the drawn out "hooo-ooo-oo" while females respond with a sharp disyllabic "kew-ick". William Shakespeare wrote in Love's Labour's Lost "....Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit; Tu-who, a merry note". So Shakespeare seems to have been describing a pair of duetting Tawny Owls, as no Owl actually sings Tu-whit, Tu-who.