Tawny Owl

The Tawny Owl is a very widespread bird. Well known in the British countryside for calling "To-whit, To-whoo", although it doesn't sound exactly like that, everyone knows what you are talking about if they've heard it.

Just recently it seems to be common knowledge that the female of the species says "To-whit" followed by the male's "To-whoo". This is in fact absolute rubbish. Both birds are quite capable of calling the whole sentence, and both birds do, along with many shorter/longer hoots, warbles, Kee-wicks and screams.

What is true is that the male will call to the female on the nest, and she will answer him with a short "kee-wick" - "Are you alright?", "Yes I'm fine", just enough to hopefully not give her location away to anything else.

Tawny's are birds of the woodland, but can be found in the middle of town wherever there are trees enough to attract them. They have a wide variety of prey items including almost any bird smaller than themselves, numerous small mammals, rabbits, bats, beetles, worms, amphibians and they will even go fishing, so maybe that wasn't a Heron that stole your goldfish! They will also eat some vegetable matter, grass fibres, leaves etc and at home (the one pictured here who is called Toby) this tawny owl loves to eat a cherry, pip and all.

They are the most versatile of all the British owls and are found almost all over mainland Britain, but not in Ireland. If you put up a nest box designed for Tawny Owls at the end of your garden, high up in a tree, you may well attract one of these lovely birds, they take to next boxes like big brown Blue Tits.

Their plumage ranges from a very deep rusty red, through various shades of brown to grey, and there have even been white tawny owls, but it is unlikely that these white birds would live for very long in the wild.