Tawny owl: the voice in the wood<\/h2>
![\"Tawny](\"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/nzladgntm1vuuuzmowdkjeeo5dol4yjpxuyyilopszsws8lp.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&h=auto\" "\\"Tawny")
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The tawny owl, Strix aluco<\/em>, is the common one, and the one that is not in Ireland at all. The BTO<\/u><\/a> puts the UK breeding population at about 50,000 pairs, from a 2005 estimate, and describes it as our most widespread owl: woodland first, then parks and large gardens with old trees. It is absent from Ireland, the Northern Isles and treeless uplands. A ringed bird has reached 23 years.<\/p> The famous call is a duet. As both the BTO<\/u><\/a> and the RSPB<\/u><\/a> explain, the sharp \u201ctoo-whit\u201d is the female answering the male\u2019s wavering hoot. One bird cannot do the whole proverb. In looks it is a compact, rounded, dark-eyed owl, reddish brown in most British birds, with no ear tufts and plumage that vanishes against bark. If you see one by day, it is usually being scolded by smaller birds that have found the roost.<\/p> It is also the species conservationists are watching most carefully among the common owls. The RSPB<\/u><\/a> lists it as Amber and reports a decline of more than 40 per cent between 1995 and 2023. Because tawnies come out at night, they are poorly covered by ordinary daytime surveys, and the reasons for the fall are still unclear. Habitat and prey are the leading suspects.<\/p> The barn owl, Tyto alba<\/em>, is the one people recognise in a car\u2019s headlights: white underneath, golden-buff above, with a heart-shaped face and dark eyes. It does not hoot. It shrieks, hisses and, if you are very close to a nest, snores. The Barn Owl Trust<\/u><\/a> is firm on this, and on the habitat. This is an owl of open farmland, hunting low and slowly over rough grass, not a bird of deep woodland.<\/p> The BTO<\/u><\/a> estimates 4,000 UK breeding pairs, from a 2016 figure, and lists the species as Green. The Breeding Bird Survey index rose by 223 per cent between 1995 and 2024, though the Trust warns that a daytime survey is a blunt tool for a bird that mostly flies at dusk. Nest boxes and milder winters have helped a recovery from the lows of the late twentieth century. Roads have not. Collision with traffic is a frequently recorded cause of death among ringed birds. Barn owls are also specially protected: disturbing a nesting bird is a criminal offence.<\/p> Britain\u2019s smallest owl is the one with the classical CV. Athene noctua<\/em>, the little owl of Athena, was introduced from continental Europe in the late 1800s and then settled across England and parts of Wales. The BTO<\/u><\/a> records about 3,600 breeding pairs in 2016, with the strongest numbers in East Anglia, the Midlands and northern England. It likes mixed farmland, old trees, fence posts and telegraph poles, and it is often active in daylight, which makes it the owl you are most likely to stare at while it stares back.<\/p> The trend is the bleak one. The same BTO monitoring shows an 88 per cent decrease between 1967 and 2024. Trends for a bird that sits still in a large territory are uncertain, but the direction is not in doubt. Changes in farming, and a shortage of the insects and other small prey it prefers, are the usual explanation. A bird that once felt like a settled Victorian import is now a scarce farmland owl.<\/p> The long-eared owl, Asio otus<\/em>, is the secretive member of the family. Those \u201cears\u201d are feather tufts, raised when the bird is alarmed, not organs of hearing. The RSPB<\/u><\/a> describes a slim, streaked, orange-eyed owl, smaller than a woodpigeon, that looks long and thin when it wants to disappear against a trunk. The BTO<\/u><\/a> calls it perhaps our most secretive owl, almost entirely nocturnal, and best detected in summer when youngsters make a noise like a squeaky gate.<\/p> Numbers are a guess with a label on it. The BTO\u2019s latest estimate is 1,800-plus pairs for 2007\u201311, and the Trust says the figure is highly uncertain because the bird is so badly under-recorded. It is Green-listed. In Ireland, where there is no tawny owl to dominate the woods, the long-eared owl is the most abundant owl. In winter, residents may be joined by birds from northern Europe, sometimes in communal roosts deep in cover. If you find one, you have done well. If you only hear the squeak, that still counts.<\/p> The short-eared owl, Asio flammeus<\/em>, is the one that breaks the night-shift rule. Yellow eyes, mottled brown plumage, barely visible ear tufts, and a buoyant flight low over moor, marsh and rough grass. The RSPB<\/u><\/a> lists it as Amber and notes that it is often seen hunting in daylight. Breeders favour the uplands of northern England and Scotland. In winter, birds from Scandinavia, Russia and Iceland swell the numbers on coasts, wetlands and downland, which is why a grey afternoon on a saltmarsh can suddenly contain an owl.<\/p> The BTO<\/u><\/a> estimates 620 to 2,200 breeding pairs, and records that the breeding range has almost halved since the 1968\u201372 atlas, a contraction of 47.6 per cent in occupied squares. Field voles run the calendar. In a good vole year, short-eared owls can appear and breed where they were absent the season before. Tracking has even shown a bird attempting to breed in both Scotland and Norway in the same year. This is a nomad, not a parishioner.<\/p> The snowy owl, Bubo scandiacus<\/em>, is the white bird everyone knows from a film and almost nobody sees in a British field. The BTO<\/u><\/a> classes it as a very rare visitor, less than annual, from the Arctic. A pair bred on Fetlar in Shetland until 1976, when the male failed to return. There has been no breeding attempt in Britain or Ireland since 2001. Globally, BirdLife International lists it as Vulnerable. A huge white owl on a Scottish headland is a lifetime tick, not a weekend plan.<\/p> That leaves the working set. Five residents, four of them native, one introduced and now declining, and a cast of rarities that should not be expected. Learn the white heart-shaped face, the dark-eyed woodland hoot, the small daylight perch, the orange-eyed tufts and the yellow-eyed day hunter, and a dusk walk stops being a rumour.<\/p>Barn owl: the ghost over the grass<\/h2>
![\"Barn](\"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/h4tkvqgzkljzwlaezxmdjrd2p6xhqyciznsjkj1thbrbarti.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&h=auto\" "\\"Barn")
<\/p>Little owl: Athena\u2019s immigrant<\/h2>
![\"32xeidsphigssjasy0t87xc5tepmbswvqc3kxpivpezikffd.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&h=auto\"](\"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/32xeidsphigssjasy0t87xc5tepmbswvqc3kxpivpezikffd.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&h=auto\")
<\/p>Long-eared owl: the one you hear and do not see<\/h2>
![\"Long](\"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/01xntbmqbxhiu3lcuwnmerjhlr9dyhazzgnn2tcf6gjubnhb.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&h=auto\" "\\"Long")
<\/p>Short-eared owl: the day hunter<\/h2>
![\"Short](\"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/ngsji8xatbq9noj7rchofxywbrbhppdwgjqzuch8ilnogsa8.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&h=auto\" "\\"Short")
<\/p>The one on the poster, and the ones you will not see<\/h2>