Avicui/ruRAL Magazine


BEING THE JOURNAL OF

THE AVICULTURAL SOCIETY

FOR THE STUDY OF

FOREIGN & BRITISH BIRDS

IN FREEDOM & CAPTIVITY



Third Series. — Vol. XI.—No. 3 .—All rights reset ved. MARCH, 1920.



THE CRY OF OWLS


Bv R. C. Banks


I am not aware of any explanation of the weird, startling cries

uttered by Owls, and I have often wondered what use they could be

to the birds. I have lately thought of a reason for the cry, and hope

that some of the readers of the Avicultural Magazine who have kept

Owls will be able to record some fact that settles my idea—for or against

—or, better still, devise an experiment with an Owl to test it. I know

the great difficulty of devising and recording an experiment of this

nature, but to me it is in such endeavours to clear up doubtful questions

of this nature that the chief value of aviculture consists. I have never

kept Owls, and am quite prepared to hear, on the principle of “ nothing

new under the sun ”, that my idea is ancient history ; but my excuse

for troubling is that it has occurred independently to me.


Birds have various notes to express alarm, etc., and these notes

are mostly pleasing and harmonious, some of the love-songs very much

so. Why should Owls utter such raucous, startling cries ? It would

appear to be a great mistake for a bird that catches its prey by night

to let the prey know that it is about, searching for a victim ; but the

notes of all birds have a meaning and a use, and 1 have no doubt the

Owl’s cry helps it to catch its food, or Owls would have starved long ago.


In Monmouthshire there are five Owls. The Short-eared species.



