Northern Observations of Inland Birds 57 



Galloway, the tawny owl feeds chiefly on song birds, 

 though rats, squirrels, young rabbits, and leverets go 

 to supplement its normal fare. It does not do much 

 harm to game birds breeding naturally, but one very much 

 begrudges it its toll on our song birds, whose music adds 

 so much to life, feeling that the owl takes an unfair and 

 unsporting advantage of them when they are perched 

 serenely at their roosting places, and when the owl itself 

 can see, though they, whose lives are at stake, are helpless. 

 How different such a mode of hunting from that of the 

 peregrine, yet there are many who begrudge this noble 

 bird its fare ! 



Tawny owls are essentially woodland birds. Often 

 they nest in ruins, but seldom in barns and outhouses. 

 In the ruins of Kenilworth, as in Bolton Abbey, I had 

 opportunities of studying them, and often saw them 

 take their prey. So far as the value of silent flight is 

 concerned for the approaching of their quarry, I repeatedly 

 noticed that the tawny owl often ** shouts *' immediately 

 on launching forth from its look-out post to descend 

 upon its prey — evidently to inspire fear ; so noise of 

 descent would seem to be in the bird's favour rather 

 than otherwise. On clutching his quarry the tawny 

 owl '* shouts '* again, then returning to his perch he sits 

 motionless for a time, '* moans " solemnly, then proceeds 

 to gulp his victim. In the gloom it is usually impossible 

 to decide whether the victim is bird or mammal. 



The long- eared owl is a lover of our dense larch forests. 

 It does not generally exist except where such evergreen 

 forests clothe the hillsides. It utters a plaintive mewing 

 cry which, in the general bedlam of the night, requires 

 some concentration of mind to assign it to its rightful 

 creator. The long-eared owls that have come under my 

 observation have fed chiefly on the young of the ring 

 dove — which generally chooses the same environment — 



