Shriek of the Week: Tawny Owl
Total hoot
A long winter’s night is the perfect time to hear a tawny owl.
A tawny’s hoot is the archetypal owl sound. It’s usually a single woo or a woohoo, followed by a pause, and then a longer, quavering who-hoo-hoo-hoooooooo.
It’s the male birds that are (usually) responsible for the hooting, with the females making a very different kewik, as below.
When delivered in combination this gives us ‘to-wit-to-woo’, the go-to bedtime-story-description of an owl.
Tawnies keep territories all the year round, and are vocal in defence of them. As highly sedentary birds, they rely on intimate familiarity with their local areas to see them through all the seasons. Like the best birders, they are dedicated patch-watchers.
Autumn and winter are times to keep the defences strong, with the previous summer’s youngsters attempting to bag territories of their own, and having not likely dispersed far from where they were raised - the source of considerable intergenerational angst.
Tawnies make their homes in forests, around villages and across wooded countryside but also in urban parks, and even some large suburban gardens.
Their powerful talons are useful for climbing and doing damage to anything that gets too close (pioneering photographer Eric Hosking famously lost an eye to a tawny).
Most often though they are deployed against their staple diet of small mammals. The owl will wait perfectly quietly on a branch or log before dropping onto its unwitting target. Silent feathery death.
And not just for mice and voles. Tawny owls are adaptable, and will take frogs, small birds, earthworms - even, it’s been recorded, goldfish.
That versatility is perhaps the key to their status as our commonest owl, numbering perhaps 50,000 pairs. They are spread across Britain, but notably absent from some places. Occasional goldfish predation aside, it seems they’re not too keen on water, and unwilling to cross large bodies of it - meaning tawny owls are absent from Ireland and the Isle of Wight, for instance.
Intensive hooting and shrieking in midwinter may also be a sign of an early breeding season - the female can lay her first egg as early as February.
A few months later, once they are out of the nest, the owlets’ insistent begging calls make another distinctive sound of late spring and summer.
To my ear this is a squeaky toy that doesn’t quite squeak properly anymore.
With their pneumatic wheezing and habit of sitting out on a branch, young birds are rather easier to seen than adults.
Barn owls and short-eared owls will readily hunt in daylight. But tawny owls rarely move from their daytime roosting spots (typically, the shadowy nook of a tree) until it’s almost dark.
If you are lucky you may catch their silhouette against a not-quite-black sky. But it’s the sound that can be better relied upon - a hoot, or a shriek, or to-wit-to-woo.
Hungry for more on the many noises made by tawny owls? Try The Sound Approach.
As 2023 draws to a close…
We are marking the end of the year with a couple of get-togethers on Zoom:
The first is this Thursday (21 December) 7.30 - 8.45pm (UK time), for a special solstice quiz. This is open to paying subscribers - if you would like to come, there’s still time to upgrade, and get all the features of the paid subscription.
The second is an ‘Early Bird Club’ meet on Thursday 28 December, 8 - 9am (UK time). In this session we start the day together touring wildlife webcams and audio streams from around the UK and beyond, and see what can see (and hear), live. This one is open to all. 👉 Join the Zoom here
In 2024…
We ratchet back up to weekly posts, with the common songbirds featuring again, in rough sync with their activity during the spring. If you have been a subscriber to Shriek of the Week for a year or more, you will notice some repetition! I hope you find this helpful, as a seasonal reminder of what to listen out for. There’s usually something a little extra or different about these pieces each time a species is republished. Paid subscribers receive narrated versions of these pieces (and those in the archive) as well as occasional ‘extra’ birds, and invitations to the monthly Zooms.
Too early for Christmas shopping, I know
If you’re anything like me, it’s not *quite* time to do your Christmas shopping yet (after all, it’s not even Christmas Eve). But if you are super organised and in the market for ideas:
* Gift subscription to Shriek of the Week (£25/ year or £5/month)
* Half-day walkshop with me in Sussex in Spring 2024 (£45) (London date coming soon).
* Birdsong Essentials, the 10-week course (£170 / £225)
* Gift voucher for Birdsong Academy to spend on any of the above
Thank you for being a subscriber in 2023. I hope you heard the birds you wanted.
If you have any feedback, comments or requests, please leave a comment or email me.
I wish you a peaceful couple of weeks, full of fieldfares, winter skies and mince pies.
~ Charlie
Media credits:
Tawny Owl image by Jon Pauling from Pixabay
Thank you!