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29 June 2006. After the site restructure I was updating links from other sites and came across this from my small gallery on The Owl Pages website. Such a charming pic of Sophie when she was about 70 days old, and eventually it'll go somewhere in her pages. Meanwhile it goes here!

On another site where one of my microphone samples is linked I found this wonderful male tawny recording. His hoots have an unusually pronounced and sustained tremolo. He seems to stay in the same place throughout the recording. There's a stream nearby. After 25 s a female is heard in the middle distance (I think! it's very faint), and then at 1 min another male, also in the middle distance. As they're off in the same direction they're probably a pair. The chaks at 45 s are a Jackdaw. The two males appear to be engaged in territorial calling. (Logging this was not without problems as it set Sophie off into a series of her warble calls!) Warning: it's a 2.3 Mb, 3.5 min file. Click here to play. From quiet woodland in Newtondale, N Yorkshire, recorded 8 pm 14 April 2006, so it's nesting time -- and Robin singing time! The recordist is Allan Haighton. He was using a pair of Rode NT1-A mics.

5 July: Allan has kindly sent four more tawny recordings. See next page, where there's a link to the page on this website where I've put them.

Sophie in one of her favourite places watching the street. If she sees something interesting she screeches, loudly! There's lots to watch -- crows, squirrels, pigeons, humans and their dogs, and even foxes. Cormorants and the occasional heron fly by. The other evening I came back from shopping and heard a barking I'd only heard in the woods before. One fox was in the road straight ahead of me and the other, barking fox was behind.

Sophie is Mrs Owl's daughter, hatched on or soon after 1 May 2005.

More on Sophie, tawnies and owls (transferred from the Nesting Diary 2006, entry for 25 May)

AN AMUSING STORY from my lodger, Jackie. She was returning to the flat late at night recently when she was stopped by a woman in the street. The woman pointed up at my window and asked if that was her cat. Was the cat all right? She'd been watching it and was worried that it looked rather strange. Jackie didn't say if she told her what the creature really was! The pic above shows my flying cat at her lookout post in my room.

It's an appropriate story because if I wanted to tell anyone what an owl was like I'd say it was very like a cat. Temperamentally, and in behaviour, appearance and feel, tawnies really are like pussy cats that've grown a pair of wings. Both are largely nocturnal species, and their diet, and so the way they hunt, are very similar too. Interestingly, in French a synonym for Tawny Owl is chat-huant, or hooting cat (they're usually called chouette hulotte). Literally, huer means to raise the alarm, as in our "hue and cry". If you think that a term suggesting "screaming cat" applied to a tawny is going a step too far, a bit of Gallic poetic licence, the short sample below might be a surprise.

Chat-huant 200kb mp3

A couple of alley cats having a scrap? You can only really be sure it's tawnies (which it is) near the end. A dominant male is shooing another male off his territory. Clearly the French listen to their owls.

After that I'd say there's a curious similarity to parrots. This is seen in the slow, deliberate movements -- very unlike other birds -- the way the feet are used to hold and examine objects, and the way they can use their feet and beaks to climb up things. Even the beak is rather similar.

I should mention two ways in which tawnies at least are not like cats. First, they don't purr! Like many birds they show appreciation or affection by giving a quick little nibble with their beak. Owly used to settle on my shoulder and "scissor" down the edge of my ear with his beak. It was a bit alarming but he was always very gentle about it. Second, again like many birds, they don't generally like being stroked. This seems to arise from a sense that their feathers are very delicate and that careless handling can drive the spines into their delicate skin. Finally, the tawnies I've had are very independent little critters. That may be like cats, but unlike cats they don't often come to you seeking attention. They are happy to live with you and share your territory, but basically they prefer to be left alone.

Tom Harbron (of Birds of Madison County) writes that the early French Canadians called the Barred Owl the "flying cat". They are also still called the "chat-huant du nord". And there are many cat-related names for the fearsome-looking Great Horned Owl of North America: night tiger, tiger of the air, winged tiger, flying bobcat, cat owl and tiger owl. Not altogether surprising as I've completely forgotten to add that owls' faces and eyes can look pretty much like a cat's. They even have "whiskers", and the Great Horned Owl (pic below) has a pair of "ears" to show he really is a small flying tiger.

A rather tame-looking flying tiger!

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