Tawny Owl Calls

The silence of the forest is subtly exchanged for the sweet sounds of an owl calling out to its kin. The brilliant plume puckers as the bird looks this way and that for the source of the screech, while delicately dancing on a branch high above the forest floor. You can almost feel the feathers rubbing against your skin as the wings widen and then curl back, stretching off the morning frost and warming the thin bones that will carry the bird through the green maze of trees and mountain rocks. Although many people believe this owl has exceptional night vision, its retina is no more sensitive than a human's. Rather, it is its asymmetrically placed ears that are key to its hunting because they give the Tawny Owl excellent directional hearing. Its nocturnal habits and eerie, easily imitated call, have led to a mythical association of the Tawny with bad luck and death. William Shakespeare used this owl's song in Love's Labour's Lost (Act 5, Scene 2) as "Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit; Tu-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot", but this stereotypical call is actually a duet, with the female making the kew-wick sound, and the male responding hooo. This sound uses the following file from Freesound: http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=116663