Mistaken identity for Bard’s owl
Nothing builds suspense in horror film scenes like the haunting calls of tawny owls.
The ghostly hoots and shrill screams are invariably nerve-tingling preludes for dark deeds carried out deep in moonlit forests.
Tawny owls certainly know how to take centre stage in grisly dramas.
Our most widespread nocturnal predators can trace their theatrical roots back to none other than William Shakespeare who, despite being our greatest playwright, has long outraged birdwatchers for making an ornithological howler in Love’s Labour’s Lost. In the play, the Bard’s reputation as a bad birder is there to behold in the following lines written to revere the virtues of winter: “When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl, ‘Tu-whit; Tu-who’, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.”
Mistakenly, the hooting owl calls Shakespeare immortalised in one of his first comedies were not the nocturnal declarations of a single bird but in fact a pair duetting, with the male hooting and a female answering back with a shrill “kee-wick”.
Halloween is the perfect time to listen out for tawny owls, as young birds are being forced out of their nursery grounds by parents to look for territories of their own.
Established adult birds thus become more vocal from October through to November to warn off invading upstarts. Come spring, the owls will again increase their calling as a curtain raiser to the nesting season.
The best time to listen for owls is on a dry night when the moon is near full and winds are soft.
Calls travel some distance and have become an excellent way for conservationists to survey a species adapted to remain invisible in daylight.
After concerns about a 28 per cent decline in breeding tawny owls in recent years, a small army of 9,500 British Trust for Ornithology volunteers ventured into the night during 2018/19 to listen out and map their location.
The survey revealed that numbers have remained largely stable since the last study 15 years ago.
Adult birds become more vocal now to warn off invading upstarts