THE



Avicultural Magazine


BEING THE JOURNAL OF

THE AVICULTURAL SOCIETY

FOR THE STUDY OF

FOREIGN & BRITISH BIRDS

IN FREEDOM & CAPTIVITY



Third Series. —Vol. XI.—No. 5 .—All rights reserved. MAY, 1920.



THE CRY OF OWLS


By Aubyn Trevor-Battye, M.A.


As your correspondent Mr. R. C. Banks invites opinions upon

this subject (Avicultural Magazine, Vol. XI, No. 3, pp. 39-40),

may I venture upon one or two points that occur to me ? But first

I must join with Mr. T. A. Coward in his defence of Owls’ voices (ibid.,

p. 58). Because the screech of the Barn Owl is strident, as the

utterance of its nestlings is wheezy, does it not seem a little unkind to

condemn the voices of Owls generally as “ raucous ” ? What about the

most beautiful and musical call of the Tawny Owl and the clear bark

of the Long-eared Owl ? Even the chiding note of a nesting Short¬

eared Owl is surely no more “ raucous ” than that, say, of a Hobby

under the same conditions ; the call of the Little Owl, if monotonous,

is quite nice, while the Eagle Owl’s full-throated and sonorous “ Hoo ! ”

so far from being “ very much worse ” than all these, is actually one

of the noblest of bird voices. But this is by the way. The question is :

Why do Owls utter calls likely to make their hunting more difficult ?

The answer seems to be that they don't, and that these calls make no

difference one way or the other—unless, indeed, they may make hunting

more easy, in so far as they tend to indifference on the part of the

hunted.



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