TAWNY OWL 



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Tawny Owl is resident in the British Islands. It is 

 very fond of gloomy, secluded spots, hence its distribution 

 is limited to wooded localities; and, as plantations of 

 fir and other trees are becoming more extensive year by 

 year, the bird is extending its range, though incessant 

 persecution is telling on its numbers. 



The Tawny Owl has an extraordinary liking for 



gloom and retirement ; its favourite haunts, therefore, are in the depth of the 

 forest. Some hollow oak in the middle of the wood is its home, where year 

 after year it rears its young; or it may take up its abode in some giant ash 

 or elm thickly overgrown with ivy, or in some crevice or cave in the rocks 

 among the gnarled old pines. Its plumage is well adapted to conceal it 

 from its prey, as it sits huddled against the trunk of some tree. 



The evening is the hunting-hour of the Owl ; at that time mice, rats, 

 rabbits, and many other little creatures, come out of their retreats and scuttle 

 about among the grass and in the open. Then the ghostly silent one flits 

 about pouncing down on its prey. Perched on a dead branch in the top of 

 some huge oak, his sharp eye detects the little woodmouse moving about 

 in the dead leaves: down he darts noiselessly, to rise again with his prey, 

 which he devours at his leisure. Its food consists of mice, moles, frogs, large 

 insects, and an occasional small bird who has not gone to roost in time ; on 

 some occasions they have been known to stoop and carry off fish which have 

 been feeding too near the surface of the water. 



The Tawny Owl is easily distinguished from the Barn Owl by its note ; 

 the latter screeches, while the former has a low, clear ' hoo-hoo-hoo,' which 

 sounds most weird and startling when heard quite close at nightfall in the 

 silence of the dark woods. In summer the young Owls have a peculiar cry 



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