Tawny Owl
Tawny Owl is by far the most numerous breeding owl in Britain but I probably see them less often than the other four (Long-eared, Short-eared, Little and Barn Owl). Despite having around 50,000 breeding pairs throughout Britain, they have a knack of staying well-hidden until it is too dark to see them. I hear them very frequently calling at night, but I only actually see a handful each year. I remember one keen birdwatcher who had been actively birdwatching for about 5 years and he still hadn't clapped eyes on one. Yesterday I was on my exercise walk and I heard frantic alarm calls from a Blackbird coming from a thicket. I peered inside and there, to my delight, was a Tawny Owl staring right back at me with huge dark eyes. On the rare occasions I do find one during the day they usually keep their eyes shut. No matter how hard I tried, I could only get part of the owl through tiny windows in the foliage, but I thought it was worth uploading anyway. Male and female Tawny Owls 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. This is the female's kew-ick immediately followed by the male's hoo-ooo-oo.
Tawny Owl
Tawny Owl is by far the most numerous breeding owl in Britain but I probably see them less often than the other four (Long-eared, Short-eared, Little and Barn Owl). Despite having around 50,000 breeding pairs throughout Britain, they have a knack of staying well-hidden until it is too dark to see them. I hear them very frequently calling at night, but I only actually see a handful each year. I remember one keen birdwatcher who had been actively birdwatching for about 5 years and he still hadn't clapped eyes on one. Yesterday I was on my exercise walk and I heard frantic alarm calls from a Blackbird coming from a thicket. I peered inside and there, to my delight, was a Tawny Owl staring right back at me with huge dark eyes. On the rare occasions I do find one during the day they usually keep their eyes shut. No matter how hard I tried, I could only get part of the owl through tiny windows in the foliage, but I thought it was worth uploading anyway. Male and female Tawny Owls 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. This is the female's kew-ick immediately followed by the male's hoo-ooo-oo.