Читать книгу The Times A Year in Nature Notes - Derwent May - Страница 15

TAWNY OWLS ARE hooting in the night – a long, sonorous set of notes, often wavering slightly. They also have a sharp ‘kwick’ note, probably more often used by the female, and the two sounds together constitute the legendary ‘tu-whit, tu-whoo’. They fly around noiselessly in the dark on their soft, rounded wings, alert to any sight or sound of movement, and swoop down on careless mice or small birds roosting in the bushes. Sometimes a tawny owl is caught in a car’s headlights, standing on the ground eating its prey. It looks up with its large gleaming eyes before it flies off rapidly into the shadows. In the daytime, they sleep in hollow trees, or pressed up against a tree trunk hidden in deep ivy. If they venture out in the daytime, they may be mobbed by small birds and forced to flee.