YOU'VE HEARD IT, BUT HAVE YOU SEEN IT?

IAN KERR looks at the nocturnal lifestyle of the elusive tawny owl.

APART from the cuckoo, it's probably the one bird call which most people can imitate. Ask anyone, from a four-year-old child to their great-grandmother of 94, and they can give a passable “tewit-tawoo” call of a tawny owl.

While this popular rendition may not be entirely accurate, it is a measure of just how familiar people consider they are with owls and everything about them.

Soft toy owls come high in the popularity stakes with the young. Childhood storybooks are full of 'wise old owls'. Some adults have mantelpieces decked with plaster and glass models of these highly engaging creatures, and no peak-time TV country drama is complete without some creepy background hooting to indicate that something sinister is afoot.

But how many folk can put their hand on their heart and say they have actually seen a tawny owl? Despite being by far the commonest owl, whose calls are familiar to thousands, their private lives are very private indeed.

Their nocturnal habits, daylight hours spent roosting silently and motionless, and cryptic colouring which blends so well with their woodland haunts make them very difficult to see.

Even when disturbed from a roosting place they will fly quietly and quickly away, vanishing back into cover within seconds, their progress usually marked by alarm calling from other woodland birds. Indeed, a lot of noise from tits, wrens, blackbirds and other species is often the first indication that an owl is nearby.

Tawny owls are as big as crows with plump bodies, large heads, all-black eyes and an upright stance. Their plumage is a mixture of streaked browns, fawns and white. A very few individuals have a greyish caste which is much more common among continental birds.

During most of the year their 'working day' begins at dusk and they are very active during the night. They hunt by sitting motionless on favoured perches, intently watching the ground below for a movement which could mean a meal. Their eyes are designed to make the most of very low light conditions and their wings are particularly soft-feathered, which enables them to fly silently. They usually make a kill by simply dropping down on their prey.

Although deciduous and mixed woodland, parkland, large gardens, avenues of trees and old buildings ó all providing a good range of nesting holes ó are favoured, they have also colonised many of our new conifer forests and moorland shelter belts. They also lay eggs in the old nests of crows and magpies. Where no holes or other nests are available, they will sometimes simply nest on the ground: a rather foolish habit which lays them open to foxes and other ground predators.

The tawny is a species which also takes readily to large nestboxes which have been erected in Kielder and some of our other large commercial forests. On the Otterburn Training Area pairs have taken over boxes designed for kestrels.

Owls hunt throughout the hours of darkness, or at least until they have satisfied their hunger or that of their young. As dawn breaks they then settle back into regular roosting places, often close to the trunk of a tree against which they are virtually invisible.

The calls of tawny owls are more complicated than those popular imitations. Adults give sharp and shrill “kewick” calls which are also used as an alarm note. These calls are often followed by a series of the familiar and rather mournful and drawn-out “hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo” notes of varying length.

Tawny owls are early breeders and many have eggs in late March and early April. Like some other species preying mainly on mammals, they vary their breeding attempts from year to year. In years when prey is in short supply they may not breed at all or may only raise single young. When prey is plentiful most pairs will breed and raise larger broods.