Bird of the week - Tawny owl

The tawny owl (Strix aluco) is a fairly common but elusive bird, more often heard than seen.  It has the beautiful dark eyes of a night hunter but uses its supersensitive hearing more than its sharp eyesight.  This photos are of a captive reared bird taken on a photoshoot with Alan Hewitt and Andy Howey.

Tawny owls are woodland birds and are found in most areas of Great Britain apart from the Scottish Highlands and Islands.

Because it is nocturnal the tawny owl is difficult to monitor but the UK population is around 50,000 pairs with year-to-year variations influenced by the availability of prey.

You can see from this EBCC tawny owl distribution map that the UK is part of Europe.

Thomas Bewick gave the tawny owl's other names of Common Brown Ivy Owl or Howlet.  He also wrote "The Tawny Owl and Brown Owl have by the older authors been described as a distinct species; but Latham, Montagu, and Temminck seem to agree in considering them identical, the differences arising merely from age and sex."  Here is Bewick's engraving from A History of British Birds published in 1797.

The commonly used description of the tawny owl's call comes originally from William Shakespeare in Love's Labour Lost, Act V, Scene 2 [Winter]:

Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit;

Tu-who, a merry note,

You can listen to the female owl's Tu-whit here and the male's Tu-who here.  Listen to Sir David Attenborough's BBC Radio 4 Tweet of the Day on tawny owl here.

The bumblebee's tongue

On a cold grey miserable day last week I found two bumblebees in the greenhouse.  At first I thought they were dead but when I picked them up there were signs of life.  I gave each of them a drop of honey on a plant label and they were soon moving around.  While they were drinking I was able to take a few photos to show the details of the bumblebee's tongue.

The first was an Early Bumblebee (Bombus pratorum) carrying white pollen.  The proboscis in this bee is relatively short by bumblebee standards.  It is composed of a stiff tube formed by two mandibles and two more flexible palps, the tips of which you can see here.

In this photo the mandibles are separated and the inner flexible tongue is in the honey.

The second bee was a Common Carder Bee (Bombus pascuorum).  It shows nicely the long flexible brush-tipped tongue, usually used for sucking up nectar but just as good for honey in an emergency.

Today I found another Common Carder Bee carrying white and blue pollen.  I reckon to rescue several bees a day from the greenhouse - mostly bumblebees and honey bees - but they rarely need resuscitating with honey.

The length of the proboscis varies between species, one of the longest being in the garden bumblebee (Bombus hortorum).

The proboscis is normally folded under the bee in flight, as shown here.

The honey bee's tongue is very similar to that of the bumblebee but I believe solitary bees' tongues are a bit different.

Just beautiful

On a walk yesterday near Upton Mill in Northamptonshire I came across a group of Beautiful Demoiselles (Calopteryx virgo) sunning themselves.  These are mature males.

The immature males have a lighter green/blue colouration and brown wings with no wing spots.

This is another young male with a male Banded Demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens) flying in the background.

The females are green and gold with white wing spots (pterostigmata).

Hauled out

I went for a walk along the Northumberland coast and met a group of grey seals resting on the shore.  I heard them first - a gentle moaning and groaning sound.  They were packed close together with lots of posturing but no fights.

The pups were lying together away from the adults.

The photos are taken from a fair way off with an (equivalent) 960mm lens on a windy and sunny day so are not as sharp as I would like but I spent a very happy hour sitting and watching.

Nest box news - D-Day

This was a surprise.  Watching the chicks yesterday and first thing this morning I really thought they would go today.  In previous years they have always fledged 18 or 19 days after hatching but this was already day 20.  Something wasn't right and when they were still in the box by mid morning I assumed the departure was off until tomorrow - in the last six years they have always flown before 0930, and usually before 0700.

Then suddenly at 1445 this afternoon they got all excited and one of them sort of fell out of the entrance after the parent came in - something I haven't recorded from inside before (I'm usually outside with the camera).  The others then jumped up to see where the first one had gone but none immediately followed.  It's a longish clip but interesting to watch.

I ran outside and managed to catch the next three baling out, all within less than five minutes.  Here is no 2 with a rather bouffant hairstyle.

And no 3.

And no 4.

There was then a long pause so I came back in to check that the last two were still in the box.  The parents kept popping in to feed them even though they also had the other four in the trees outside.

The last two really didn't fancy it and spent another hour in the box, huddled together trying to pluck up courage.

Eventually No 5 left - again recorded from inside - but the last one was very unsure.

Here is the last chick staring out of the window.

No 6 eventually made the jump at around 1600 after hanging right out of the box for five minutes or more, joining the others on their adventure in the big world outside.

Mipit?

Mipit* in a tree or tripit**?

* Meadow pipit

**Tree pipit

Both birder slang.

Fairy longhorns

I saw these fairy longhorn moths on the roses at the entrance to Gosforth Park Nature Reserve.  They are probably green longhorns (Adela reaumurella).  These are males with metallic green / bronze wings and amazing long white antennae.