Too-whit too-who?

Who's hooting in your neighbourhood...

I'm lucky to have a small woodland in earshot of my garden. At this time of year, as I'm putting out bird food ready for the morning, I often hear my local tawny owls singing to each other as night-time descends.

This is a great time of year to listen out for the huhuhuhooooo call of a male tawny defending his territory. Autumn is peak time for youngsters to check out potential territories of their own so adult males, who may have held their patch of woodland for ten or twenty years, will be watchful of young interlopers. Breeding can start as early as January, however, so as well as defending a territory, some of the calls may well be an owl serenading his mate. The too-wit too-woo call is actually a duet between female and male, the female making the higher pitched too-wit with the male's warbling too-woo following it. A few years ago I was lucky enough to have been standing almost directly underneath a singing male tawny owl; not only did the unexpected sudden call nearly make me jump out of my skin but the sound was one of the purest I've ever heard.

You may hear them but tawny owls are remarkably hard to see. Even as the leaves change colour and fall to the ground, a tawny will have spotted you long before you've spotted it. Their chestnut brown bodies are flecked with lighter and darker markings, camouflaging them beautifully with the trees that they sit amongst. It's usually only movement or a noise that gives away their presence. The only ones I've spotted have been mobbed by birds, aware of the potential threat posed by this predatory species, or in the case of the one in the photo at the top of the page, it flew across the road in front of my car and I spotted where it landed.

A tawny owl perched on a branch looking at the camera — Tawny owl by Jenny Farmer

The rather flat face of a tawny owl makes them look quite different to other birds but their skull shape is actually quite similar. The apparent difference comes down to their ears and the feathers associated with them. Owls have elaborate outer ear structures that allow them to accurately pinpoint their prey but there is a payoff to this - their eyes have to face more to the front than on other birds.

Quite surprisingly, owl eyesight isn't as great as you might think. That's not to say that it's bad but in a dark wood on a moonless evening, a tawny owl's eyesight might be no better than yours or mine. So how on earth do they find their prey? As well as that incredibly hearing, tawny owls are faithful to their territories and know them like the back of their wing. Once established, they never leave their territory and know every overhanging branch, tight turn and fallen log. They know how far it is from perch to ground and how to return to their nest in the pitch black.

There are around 50,000 pairs of tawny owls across the UK and their numbers have been gradually dropping since the 1970s, leading to their amber listing as a bird of conservation concern. They're under pressure from loss of their habitat, whether that's the destruction of big old trees with lots of holes for nesting in or changing land use in the wider landscape. Our changing climate might also impact tawny owl populations. Most of their bulk is made of feathers so they're well adapted to roosting in cold weather but very cold winters or very wet winters can affect populations both from a roosting and a food-finding point of view.

When you’re snuggled up inside as the colder days arrive, spare a thought for wildlife outside…but occasionally open a window to listen out for a crooning owl.