Bay owls and barn owls | Tytonidae

Kerkuilen | Lechuzas

The facial disc is heart-shaped and sharply bounded by a stiff ruff of short feathers; the asymmetry that allows the height of a sound to be judged lies here not in the skull but in movable flaps of skin in front of the ears. The eyes are small and dark, the head narrow, the legs long and thinly feathered, and the claw of the middle toe has a comb-like serrated edge with which the disc is combed and kept clean. These birds do not hoot but scream: a long, hoarse, piercing shriek, matched from the nest by a snoring, hissing wheeze from the young; when threatened the bird sways from side to side with its wings spread and snaps its bill. Hunting is done low and searching over open grassland, in a slow, wavering flight with the legs dangling, or by listening from a post. The diet consists almost entirely of mice and voles, and clutch size follows the vole cycle: in good years large clutches and sometimes two broods are raised. Below a regular roost a heap of pellets builds up.