Tag Archives: tawny owl

Birds, Communication

Birdsong to herald the Spring!

Common Whitethroat

For the last few days we have rejoice in the sound of birdsong and been relieved that so many of our old friends have made it back from their winter quarters to boost the chorus of our native woodland dunnocks, robins and wrens.

Dunnock
Robin
Wren

Suddenly the hedges are full of willow warblers in their minor key and the excited, raspy call of sedge warblers who suddenly throw themselves into the air, showing off to the female of his choice. Now the reed warblers join in with their lower, more guarded song. Evolution has taught them to conceal their location and that of their nest. Now they are all singing to attract a mate, all with their own particular refrain.

willow warbler
Reed Warbler
Sedge Warbler

As you can see, to make things more interesting (with the exception of the reed warbler) they do not usually call from their eponymous habitats!

Everywhere we go we listen for the Cuckoo — this year everywhere we go we hear him. We hear him calling from all around but he flies always behind the trees so we cannot see him. This morning the sun was shinning and at last we saw one, here he is shouting from the highest branch, before taking off to advertise himself to the females on the other side of his large territory.

We heard a female cuckoo’s call back, said to sound like water going down a plug hole, to me it is more like the whinnying of a horse. She calls from cover while she stealthfully searches for the nests of any careless reed warbler or dunnock, who has given away her nest and left it unattended.

Down by the river we notice something swoop down and disappear into a hole — I stake it out with my camera. What is this?

A Blue Tit, nesting in a convenient rusty post.

One species is well ahead in the breeding stakes —

Tawny owl twins meet the world — sitting in the sun this morning.

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Birds, Humour

The Curious Incident of the Bird in the Night-time

1 am awoken from deep sleep by Magpie calling from very nearby.

“That’s odd!”

Stupor ensues.

“Owls!” I hear from the edge of perception.

Then there is a clomping down the stair, crash, expletive, flash of light and the sound of a something heavy being moved.

Then I hear it: “Qweeik! Qweeik!” Very loud and very near. There is a chorus of twit-toowooing from all around the rim of the bowl of hills in which we are presently contained. Every urgent, insistent queeik answered by a reassuring, low pitched owly sound from a different direction and each queeik parried by the rattling panic of a magpie.

Now my eyes are open and there is wild illumination from outside the house. Trees flash on and off like Christmas lights; I wonder about hallucinations in confinement — hypnogogic perhaps. Better go with the flow — I rise and grab a dressing gown, descend the stairs in darkness (mustn’t alert whatever it is — that’s odd someones moved the toolbox — I’ve got good night vision). The front door is wide open — I follow the flashes.

The qweeiking and corvid football rattling are unabated and can now be localized to the tall leylandii on the bank just above the house below which a man in a dressing gown and carpet slippers is scanning the tops of the aforementioned trees with the beam of a powerful flashlight.

The sky is clear, crossed by a shooting star. The moon is bright but still quite new so the stars are not so dulled by the moonlight. “Watch out!” calls the man who is hearteningly familiar, “Watch where you step!”

Looking down, there is a middle sized black and white bird sitting at my feet, looking up at me but not moving.

“He’s petrified!”

Now there is a moral dilemma. Farmers hate magpies, I’m not keen on them — they raid nests, eat loads of fledglings, do unspeakable things to defenseless, sick and trapped creatures and desecrate the bodies of the dead (true, they don’t drive to County Durham).

In the interest of balance — magpie pauses after grooming sheep.

Now the tables are turned: Magpie has met its match. Its nest is under attack by Tawny Owl — female tawny owl egged on (sorry) by male members of her family from a distance (typical) and we feel a wave of sympathy for the magpie mum whose only just fledged baby has parachuted onto the patio and into our protection.

First thing next morning there are no feathers on the ground and later an adult magpie is seen feeding a fledgling in the big pine tree at the other end of the house near to where the baby bird had landed the night before while the other parent feeds its sibling in the leylandii.

Tawny Owl (Strix aluco) by Martin Mecnarowski (CC BY_SA 3.0)

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Ecology, Wales

Sometimes I think I’m invisible!

Cheeky bank vole steeling new friend, Thrush’s fat ball (he’s eaten all the bananas!) — bold as brass, six feet away from me.

Gosh! He moves fast, flitting all about the bank –soon the plants will have grown so much that he will be sheltered from the eyes in the sky –buzzards, barn owls and tawny owls. But watch out! There’s a stoat that visits the bank and next door’s cat. Everything is getting much braver since our dog died.

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