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Tawny owl | Strix aluco
Bosuil | Cárabo común
The voice of the night woods in north-west Europe and by far the commonest owl in the Low Countries. It is resident and so site-faithful that a pair may hold the same wood, park or churchyard for years.
Voice
Two sounds. The territorial male gives a drawn-out hoo-hoo … huhuhoooo with a quavering ending; the female answers with a sharp, shrill ke-wick. Most vocal from October to February, in the first hours after dark and again just before sunrise.
Recording: Alvaro Ortiz Troncoso — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Identification
Stocky, big-headed owl without ear tufts, with a round plain face and wholly black eyes. There is a grey-brown and a rufous morph, both heavily streaked below and showing a pale line of white scapular spots across the back. In flight broad and round-winged, beating slowly and utterly silently.
Confusion species
Long-eared owl: slimmer, with orange eyes, ear tufts and a narrower, startled-looking face; in flight longer, narrower wings and more gliding. Eagle Owl is far larger with blazing orange eyes. Voice decides it: Long-eared gives a monotonous sighing oo, Tawny a drawn-out quavering hoot.
Habitat
Old broadleaved woodland with hollow trees, but equally estates, parks, cemeteries and old town gardens with heavy timber. Needs cavities or nest boxes and a varied understorey full of mice; absent from Ireland and from much of the open polder land.
Where the bird is most at home, classified with EUNIS — the European standard for habitats.
Range and movements
Almost all of Europe except Ireland, Iceland and northern Scandinavia. In north-west Europe common on sandy soils and in old parks into towns; in the Mediterranean numerous in oak and beech woods, mountain pine forest and dehesa. Resident, rarely moving far.
- Resident
- Breeding (summer)
- Winter
- Passage
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
From October to December stand quietly at the edge of an old wood or park an hour after sunset and listen; the hoot carries hundreds of metres. In February and March calling pairs often sit in the top of a dead tree.
Conservation status
Generally stable in Europe, with local declines where old broadleaved woodland and hollow trees disappear. Threats include felling of nest trees, secondary poisoning by rodenticides and collisions on wooded roads; disturbance of calling birds by playback during the breeding season is a growing problem.
Scientific name
Strix aluco | Linnaeus, 1758
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. He introduced the genus Strix in that same work. Strix is the Latin word for 'owl'; in classical lore the strix was a night bird said to suck the blood of infants. aluco comes from Italian allocco 'tawny owl', which goes back to Latin ulucus 'screech owl'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Sweden.