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Tawny owl

 

 

The tawny owl is our best known owl. Even its Estonian name, „kodukakk“, meaning home owl, comes from its living close to the homes of humans.

 

It is a bird that is very faithful to its nesting site. In some parks or cemeteries with ancient trees the birds have been living for decades.

 

In the morning or evening dusk we can see the birds, that blend so well into the surrounding nature, sitting on roadside trees or posts. The flight is gently sloping when they check their hunting grounds – forest verges, fields, meadows but also the yards of summerhouses and farmsteads. Observing them is not the easiest of tasks, the owl will notice the observer first, rather than the other way about. It sleeps the days off, in the attics of living houses or outbuildings where they have access, and a view of a tawny owl sitting on top of a chimney is no rarity. The tawny owl pair were ho-hooing to each other in their nest site park already from seven o’clock in the evening before the cold of the last week.

 

The eyes of the tawny owl are dark and they are surrounded by noticeable feathered discs; the beak is pale yellow. The tail is short, and so the large head with a short neck dominates, the stocky body leaving an impression of a strong bird. Among tawny owls two different plumage colours occur: rusty brown and ash grey; why this is so scientists don’t know precisely. The winter abundance is around some thousands of birds. The length of the tawny owl is below forty centimetres, and the female is a shade larger, and more substantial in weight than the male – around half a kilo.

 

Among owls residing in cultivated landscapes we can also meet the long-eared owl (who is revealed by the long ear-tufts) but the tawny owl is a little larger and in general with darker plumage.