Birding Journal – Tawny Owl

Latin name: Strix aluco
Size: Large and chunky
Sound: Classic owl twit-twoo/hoo hoo-o-o

As I mentioned in a previous column, ornithology is as much about using your ears as your eyes, and in order to illustrate this, I’m going to talk about a bird which I have in fact never seen on the Common, despite many desperate hours spent scanning the trees, hunting the ground for pellets, or the tell-tale mobbing of overhead passerines. Knowing my luck, I’ve probably been staring right at him, but his mottled feathers provide such a masterful disguise that I probably thought he was a piece of bark. But I do know for certain that the Tawny Owl does inhabit the Common, because on a still night I can his twit-twoos ringing out. Or his twitting, to be more precise: his prospective squeeze provides the twoos to his twits.

I know for sure that the owl I hear is a Tawny Owl, because all other owls are strictly screechers. His flat, satellite dish of a face has black eyes which signify that he’s a night hunter rather than an amber-eyed day hunter. If our eye-to-face ratio was the same as a Tawny Owl, we’d have eyes the size of grapefruits! He has a pair of assymetrical ears which aid in directional hearing, and believe it or not, he’s a relatively teeny bird under all that luxurious upholstery. His abundant feathers are soft and round-tipped rather than streamlined like most birds, as this is a creature of stealth rather than speed.

The various myths surrounding owls are fascinating, but sadly seldom true. For one thing, the myth of the wise old owl is just that – apparently they are the least intelligent bird species. And all birds, not just the owl, can rotate their heads 360degrees; but because the owl is unable to move his eyeballs in their sockets, and he has his eyes on the front of his head rather than the side, he’s the only one who needs to do this. And is the owl really a harbinger of doom? I don’t think so – I’d feel very lucky if I managed to see one!

Owls have suffered greatly due to their sinister reputation, and numbers have declined due to persecution, coupled with that old chestnut of loss of habitat. Interestingly, the Tawny Owl is the one species whose numbers have not been affected, partly due to his catholic tastes in food, which adapt to any environment change accordingly. Frogs, fish, rodents, stoats, bats, birds, even smaller members of the owl family would make a very nice meal. But the main reason for his success is, of course, simply that he’s so hard to spot. And I can vouch for that!

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