Family life of owls. The voice of a long-eared owl. The cry of an owl in the forest How an owlet cries

23.04.2020

Question: what kind of bird screams at night and does not let you sleep?

These lingering plaintive sounds have been heard by residents of the Venyukovo microdistrict for many years in a row in July. Meet this eared owl. But screams are emitted by eared owl chicks. This type of owl is relatively calm in the neighborhood with a person, although loud sounds, roar, music scare the birds. Owls hunt tirelessly all night, and flocks of mouse rodents retreat from our dwellings. Here, owls have a clear advantage, because. it is a wild species that specializes in mice. City cats and cats cannot catch so many rodents, even if they continuously hunt those 8 hours that they do not sleep. Before the diseases carried by mice and voles, first of all, our pets (cats, dogs) are defenseless, in the second place - children, in the third - we ourselves. The most dangerous, including those transmitted from mice to cats, dogs, domestic ungulates, people, should be considered the following: leptospirosis, toxoplasmosis, helminthiasis, rabies and lichen. Without medical care none of these cases can be avoided. Cats most often develop chlamydia. In the excrement of mice, their urine may contain bacteria that cause tularemia, typhus. Viruses that cause hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in humans and animals multiply in the body of ticks that live on rodents. There are many hemorrhagic fevers, these are: Crimean, Omsk, Argentine, Bolivian, Central Asian, yellow fever, Ebola, Lassa, Dange, Marburg disease and others.

Listen to the owl cry.

Now just imagine that these hordes of rodents will walk around children's sandboxes, basements, porches, paths in squares...

Let's get back to the owls. Long-eared owls are medium-sized birds: the weight of the female is 300g, the male is 250g. You will immediately distinguish it by large feather ears (up to 5 cm), bright orange color of the iris and the presence on each feather of the underside of the body, along with longitudinal streaks of a thin streaked transverse pattern. The upperparts are greyish-brown with a dark marbled pattern, the underparts are rusty-yellowish. This camouflage coloring helps blend in with the bark of the trees during the day when the owl is sleeping. During the day, he sits, stretched out and pressed against the trunk of a tree. Nuptial flight - zigzag, from tree to tree; in the spring on the fly sometimes flaps its wings loudly. The voice is a dull “hoo-hoo” or a plaintive “oo-oo-oo.” But in non-breeding time, long-eared owls are silent. If you found it with a child, then explain that you need to quietly satisfy your curiosity so as not to frighten the bird. Let the night watchman of our hygiene rest, because he has a difficult and dangerous job in nature.

Residents of our city, whose windows overlook the field and there are tall trees nearby, are advised by environmentalists to find out in winter time- Are there crow nests on these trees and try to eliminate them on their own or with the help of housing and communal services. Long-eared owls do not build their nests. Usually a married couple already in March - April puts in order the abandoned nest of a crow, thrush, buzzard or hollow. Therefore, if there is no nest, there are no squeaking chicks in front of your window. The female incubates the eggs as soon as the first egg is laid. The chicks have a big age difference. A newborn owlet weighs about 20 grams and is covered with white, relatively sparse fluff, through which pinkish skin shines through. Eyes and ear holes are closed, and he himself seems extremely helpless. However, it is worth touching the chick, as he immediately raises his head and shakes it in search of the food he has brought. Left alone, the owlet quickly cools down and begins squeak. To keep warm at night, the chicks huddle together. Their feather is light, has a unique structure, because. not found in any other birds. In anticipation of their parents, the owlets sit in a dense pile, warming each other. The chick "pyramid" is built far from randomly. Usually the older chick sits in the center, and its head always rises above the “pile of bodies”. The rest of the owlets huddle with their backs to him. The smallest chicks and eggs are at the bottom. By their long cries, parents determine the location of the chicks (all parents are calmer if they know where their children are) and the degree of feeding of the offspring. Growing owl organisms are very voracious - they need 2-4 mice for the coming sleep. When they are full, they stop screaming (most often, parents manage to feed the chicks by 2.00 - 2.30 in the morning). The owls forage for dinner for themselves and return to the nest. Usually screams are heard for three weeks, and then the first chicks try to try themselves in flight. These flying feats are dictated not only by their childish restlessness, but by the innate instinct for self-preservation, because. if a predator finds a nest, not everyone will die.

In hunting, owls have sharp eyesight. The eyes of owls have a telescopic shape (in the form of a cylinder, narrowed in front and expanded backwards). The lens of an owl's eye is located not in a flattened eyeball, as in other birds, but in a deep horny tube. In essence, this is a fast telephoto lens. A huge pupil makes full use of the smallest amount of light. The long-eared owl notices a mouse against a background of average contrast with the intensity of light created by one stearin candle 650 m away from the candle. In owls, unlike diurnal animals, rods predominate in the retina of the eye, providing twilight vision. Owl colors are perceived poorly. The eyes of owls can see not only in thick twilight, but also during the day. For a long time, without blinking, the owl often looks at the bright sky. Observing the behavior of an eagle owl during the day, one cannot help but be surprised at how far he notices a flying day predator or a crow, even if he looks against the sun. This is explained by the fact that the owl has an amazing ability to reduce the size of the pupil, as if to diaphragm it. Of course, if an owl is suddenly illuminated in the dark or scared out of a dark hollow during the day, it will not immediately be able to see well around, since it takes time to adapt its eyes. However, in owls it occurs relatively quickly. Owls are far-sighted birds and do not see very well in the immediate vicinity in front of them. It is easy to see that if the scoop (manual, of course) is quickly brought almost to the very eyes even your favorite food, then it does not react to it in any way. However, it is worth moving the food at least ten centimeters away, as the bird immediately notices it and grabs it. The fact that owls do not use vision at close range can be judged by the following fact. When an owl brings food to its mouth, it always closes its eyes. Leaning down, the bird usually touches the prey with its beak and the bristles surrounding it, searches for its head, and, making sure by touch that the prey is dead, begins to eat it.

The color of the iris in the eyes of owls often startles the observer. It can be bright orange, almost red, as, for example, in a long-eared owl, or lemon yellow, as in a short-eared owl and owls, or, finally, dark brown, as in most owls. With age, the color of the iris usually changes, becoming more and more intense. In chicks, as a rule, the iris is light brown. The color of the iris is not directly related to vision. In low light, when owls usually hunt, their iris is almost invisible at all - the entire eye is occupied by a dark pupil. The area of the iris increases and contracts autonomously in each of the eyes. It is easy to see this when watching an owl partially illuminated by a glare of sunlight.
When you look at an owl, you involuntarily pay attention to the unusual nature of the blinking of the eyes. Most birds, when blinking, raise the lower eyelid up while covering the eye with the nictitating membrane. But owls act differently, almost like people: they, blinking, lower their upper eyelids down. Rapid blinking (lowering of the eyelid) indicates the anxiety of the bird. A disturbed owl, before flying away, usually begins to “offendedly” blink. However, if the owl is calm and, falling asleep, covers its eyes, it does this, like all other birds: the lower eyelid lifts up. In other words, by the nature of the blinking, one can judge the state of the owl.

Owls have amazingly acute hearing. The flattened plumage surrounding the ear openings forms sound pickup horns that guide sound waves to the ears - two large vertical slits on the sides of the skull. Sometimes they are "cross-eyed" (or, better, "cross-eared"), located one above the other; by manipulating the outer ears, owls can change the size of the slits. All this allows them to perfectly accurately calculate the location of the victim, estimating the tiny difference in time it takes for the sound from a rustling mouse to reach each of the ears. For hunting in pitch darkness, some species of owls do well with hearing.

In addition to unique hearing and vision, evolution has awarded owls silent flight. The paws and torsos of these birds are covered with thick downy plumage, even their flight feathers and those are rounded at the ends and curled towards the body, and the outer webs of the first three feathers are often fringed or serrated in a sawtooth manner, to soften the flow of air above them. Because of this, owls appear much larger than they really are. All the same long-eared owl has a wingspan of 92 cm, but it weighs no more than an orange. Hiding, she draws in feathers, which makes her look like a fat bough.

Adult owls are skilled hunters not only because nature has awarded them with sharp eyesight, absolute hearing, silent flight, but also because of hunting tactics. If this is a field or meadow, the owl overtakes prey in flight. A mouse is noticed by a bird from a height of 2-4 m or detected by sound with an accuracy of 1 cm, an owl descends and makes a throw from a height of 1.5 - 3 m. If this is a complex terrain with fences, buildings, hills, then owls ambush - they are on duty on some branch, pole, fence. On windless, dry nights, hunting is especially successful. In rare cases, they ambush right on the ground, or low stumps. The rodent is eaten as a whole, only for the chicks the mouse carcass is divided into several parts, and for the smallest ones it is partially peeled. In a fit of parental care for the food of chicks, owls can fly over an area of up to 100 km2. Even such dedication does not always allow you to feed the entire masonry, because. there are not enough rodents in all years, crows often destroy nests, and people in settlements (both children and adults who shoot birds with pneumatic pistols). In the wild, owls have few enemies - the greatest danger to adult birds is owls and owls, and martens sometimes ruin nests. One of the ringed eared owls lived in nature for 29 years and 9 months, but usually their life span is 5-10 years, and in captivity up to 50 years. Long-eared owls restore their numbers in the Moscow region with varying degrees of success. So, in 2008, ecologists specially released long-eared owls into the Vorobyovy Gory nature reserve. These birds of prey disappeared from the reserve in the late 90s of the last century. Noise and exhaust gases big city deprived them comfortable conditions for nesting.

Grown up chicks and adult birds form small flocks in August-September and migrate to the forests - there are more rodents there in winter. That is, this bird is not migratory.

Owls are very useful birds. They prey on mice and other rodents that eat grain and thus save our crops. One single owl can catch over a thousand mice a year, saving us several tons of grain. In addition, owls catch and eat insects - pests of gardens, forests and fields. The useful effect of the activity of owls is enhanced by the fact that they hunt at night, when other winged predators are sleeping.

You can find interesting information about owls on the sites:.

planetasov.ru

wildportal.ru/sova/sova.html

be sure to read for yourself and with the children the book of our domestic popularizer of nature I.I. Akimushkin.

Akimushkin I.I. From morning to evening. - M .: Children's literature, 1974. - 160s.

The owl is a mysterious bird that is interesting for its majesty, arrogant gaze and unusual lifestyle. It is the latter that is often the reason that this bird is ranked among the retinue of the Evil Force. The nightlife not only gives it a mystique, but also instills a bit of fear in people.

Signs: true or false

For centuries, people have observed different natural phenomena, the habits of animals, eventually linking everything that happens into a logical picture. Various observations of ancestors are embodied in signs. There are statements that smack of only a desire to intimidate and thereby warn, but most of the signs are still relevant today. You can verify this from your own experience.

Many signs are associated with owls. They have long been considered unusual birds, attributing to them deep knowledge of the essence of being, fearlessness, belonging to something otherworldly. This can also explain the fact that beliefs about owls have a negative connotation. Knowledgeable people say that if an owl had a dream, was not far from home, or just happened to hear her cry, then you won’t have to expect something good. On the contrary, this is a kind of warning that something unpleasant or even dangerous will happen soon.

What is the owl crying about?

In many cultures, the owl is considered a sinister bird. Signs also speak of this - owls bring a bad sign.

If an owl screams near a residential building, then misfortune will soon happen in it - a person will die. The cry of an owl seems to invite misfortune. Even if everything is going smoothly in the family, and no one is sick, then trouble can come unexpectedly. It is not necessary that the irreparable will happen, it is likely that a person will become seriously ill. A very bad sign if an owl flew into the house through an open window.

According to popular beliefs, an owl screams not with its own voice to sudden death. She also announces the imminent appearance of a baby in an unmarried woman or a widow. It is undesirable to look at an owl during the day or look into its nest. This can attract troubles and illnesses.

An owl sitting on a church warns of an imminent change of priest, his death or the destruction of the church. If at the same time the owl sat on the cross, then this may indicate a fire.

In spring, the cry of an owl heralds the flood and many troubles associated with it. Nothing good should be expected if an owl living near a residential building has flown away.

Just a couple of signs promise something pleasant. If an owl jumps and makes sounds on the roof of the house in which a seriously ill person lives, then he can count on a quick recovery. It is also considered good if an owl sits on a tree growing near housing - households are waiting for profit.

Particularly superstitious people should not immediately become discouraged when they hear the “hoot” of an owl. If you take it as a warning and try to be a little more careful in Everyday life, then misfortune will pass by.

Signs: true or false

For many centuries, people have observed various natural phenomena, the habits of animals, eventually linking everything that happens into a logical picture. Various observations of ancestors are embodied in signs. There are statements that smack of only a desire to intimidate and thereby warn, but most of the signs are still relevant today. You can verify this from your own experience.

What is the owl crying about?

In many cultures, the owl is considered a sinister bird. Signs also speak of this - owls bring a bad sign.

An owl sitting on a church warns of an imminent change of priest, his death or the destruction of the church. If at the same time the owl sat on the cross, then this may indicate a fire.

In spring, the cry of an owl heralds the flood and many troubles associated with it. Nothing good should be expected if an owl living near a residential building has flown away.

Particularly superstitious people should not immediately become discouraged when they hear the “hoot” of an owl. If you treat it as a warning and try to be a little more careful in everyday life, then misfortune will pass by.

Question: what kind of bird screams at night and does not let you sleep?

These lingering plaintive sounds have been heard by residents of the Venyukovo microdistrict for many years in a row in July. Meet this long-eared owl. But screams are made by eared owl chicks. This type of owl is relatively calm in the neighborhood with a person, although loud sounds, roar, music scare the birds. Owls hunt tirelessly all night, and flocks of mouse rodents retreat from our dwellings. Here, owls have a clear advantage, because. it is a wild species that specializes in mice. City cats and cats cannot catch so many rodents, even if they continuously hunt those 8 hours that they do not sleep. Before diseases carried by mice and voles, our pets (cats, dogs) are defenseless in the first place, children in the second place, and ourselves in the third place. The most dangerous, including those transmitted from mice to cats, dogs, domestic ungulates, people, should be considered the following: leptospirosis, toxoplasmosis, helminthiasis, rabies and lichen. None of these cases can be avoided without medical attention. Cats most often develop chlamydia. In the excrement of mice, their urine may contain bacteria that cause tularemia, typhus. Viruses that cause hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in humans and animals multiply in the body of ticks that live on rodents. There are many hemorrhagic fevers, these are: Crimean, Omsk, Argentine, Bolivian, Central Asian, yellow fever, Ebola, Lassa, Dange, Marburg disease and others.

Listen to the owl cry.

Now just imagine that these hordes of rodents will walk around children's sandboxes, basements, porches, paths in squares...

Let's get back to the owls. Long-eared owls are medium-sized birds: the weight of the female is 300g, the male is 250g. You will immediately distinguish it by large feather ears (up to 5 cm), bright orange color of the iris and the presence on each feather of the underside of the body, along with longitudinal streaks of a thin streaked transverse pattern. The upperparts are greyish-brown with a dark marbled pattern, the underparts are rusty-yellowish. This camouflage coloring helps blend in with the bark of the trees during the day when the owl is sleeping. During the day, he sits, stretched out and pressed against the trunk of a tree. Nuptial flight - zigzag, from tree to tree; in the spring on the fly sometimes flaps its wings loudly. The voice is a deaf "hoo-hoo" or a plaintive "oo-oo." But in non-breeding time, long-eared owls are silent. If you found it with a child, then explain that you need to quietly satisfy your curiosity so as not to frighten the bird. Let the night watchman of our hygiene rest, for he has a difficult and dangerous job in nature.

Residents of our city, whose windows overlook the field and there are tall trees nearby, are advised by environmentalists to find out in winter whether there are crow's nests on these trees and try to eliminate them on their own or with the help of housing and communal services. Long-eared owls do not build their nests. Usually, a married couple already in March - April puts in order an abandoned nest of a crow, thrush, buzzard or hollow. Therefore, if there is no nest, there are no squeaking chicks in front of your window. The female incubates the eggs as soon as the first egg is laid. The chicks have a big age difference. A newborn owlet weighs about 20 grams and is covered with white, relatively sparse fluff, through which pinkish skin shines through. Eyes and ear holes are closed, and he himself seems extremely helpless. However, it is worth touching the chick, as he immediately raises his head and shakes it in search of the food he has brought. Left alone, the owlet quickly cools down and begins squeak. To keep warm at night, the chicks huddle together. Their feather is light, has a unique structure, because. not found in any other birds. In anticipation of their parents, the owlets sit in a dense pile, warming each other. The chick "pyramid" is built far from randomly. Usually the older chick sits in the center, and its head always rises above the "pile of bodies". The rest of the owlets huddle with their backs to him. The smallest chicks and eggs are at the bottom. By their long cries, parents determine the location of the chicks (all parents are calmer if they know where their children are) and the degree of feeding of the offspring. Growing owl organisms are very voracious - they need 2-4 mice for the coming sleep. When they are full, they stop screaming (most often, parents cope with feeding the chicks by 2.00 - 2.30 in the morning). The owls forage for dinner for themselves and return to the nest. Usually screams are heard for three weeks, and then the first chicks try to try themselves in flight. These flying feats are dictated not only by their childish restlessness, but by the innate instinct for self-preservation, because. if a predator finds a nest, not everyone will die.

In hunting, owls have sharp eyesight. The eyes of owls have a telescopic shape (in the form of a cylinder, narrowed in front and expanded backwards). The lens of an owl's eye is located not in a flattened eyeball, as in other birds, but in a deep horny tube. In essence, this is a fast telephoto lens. A huge pupil makes full use of the smallest amount of light. The long-eared owl notices a mouse against a background of average contrast with the intensity of light created by one stearin candle 650 m away from the candle. In owls, unlike diurnal animals, rods predominate in the retina of the eye, providing twilight vision. Owl colors are perceived poorly. The eyes of owls can see not only in thick twilight, but also during the day. For a long time, without blinking, the owl often looks at the bright sky. Observing the behavior of an eagle owl during the day, one cannot help but be surprised at how far he notices a flying day predator or a crow, even if he looks against the sun. This is explained by the fact that the owl has an amazing ability to reduce the size of the pupil, as if to diaphragm it. Of course, if an owl is suddenly illuminated in the dark or scared out of a dark hollow during the day, it will not immediately be able to see well around, since it takes time to adapt its eyes. However, in owls it occurs relatively quickly. Owls are far-sighted birds and do not see well in close proximity in front of them. It is easy to see that if the scoop (manual, of course) is quickly brought almost to the very eyes even your favorite food, then it does not react to it in any way. However, it is worth moving the food at least ten centimeters away, as the bird immediately notices it and grabs it. The fact that owls do not use vision at close range can be judged by the following fact. When an owl brings food to its mouth, it always closes its eyes. Leaning down, the bird usually touches the prey with its beak and the bristles surrounding it, searches for its head, and, making sure by touch that the prey is dead, begins to eat it.

Owls have amazingly acute hearing. The flattened feathers surrounding the ear openings form sound pickup horns that direct sound waves to the ears, two large vertical slits on the sides of the skull. Sometimes they are "cross-eyed" (or, better, "cross-eared"), located one above the other; by manipulating the outer ears, owls can change the size of the slits. All this allows them to perfectly accurately calculate the location of the victim, estimating the tiny difference in time it takes for the sound from a rustling mouse to reach each of the ears. For hunting in pitch darkness, some species of owls do well with hearing.

In addition to unique hearing and vision, evolution has awarded owls silent flight. The paws and bodies of these birds are covered with dense downy plumage, even their flight feathers are rounded at the ends and bent towards the body, and the outer webs of the first three feathers are often fringed or sawtooth serrated to soften the flow of air above them. Because of this, owls appear much larger than they really are. All the same long-eared owl has a wingspan of 92 cm, but it weighs no more than an orange. Hiding, she draws in feathers, which makes her look like a fat bough.

Adult owls are skilled hunters, not only because nature has awarded them with sharp eyesight, absolute hearing, silent flight, but also because of hunting tactics. If this is a field or meadow, the owl overtakes prey in flight. A mouse is noticed by a bird from a height of 2-4 m or detected by sound with an accuracy of 1 cm, an owl descends and makes a throw from a height of 1.5 - 3 m. If this is a complex terrain with fences, buildings, hills, then owls ambush - they are on duty on some branch, pole, fence. On windless, dry nights, hunting is especially successful. In rare cases, they ambush right on the ground, or low stumps. The rodent is eaten as a whole, only for the chicks the carcass of the mouse is divided into several parts, and for the smallest it is partially peeled. In a fit of parental care for the food of chicks, owls can fly over an area of up to 100 km2. Even such dedication does not always allow you to feed the entire masonry, because. there are not enough rodents in all years, crows often destroy nests, and people in settlements (both children and adults who shoot birds with pneumatic pistols). In the wild, owls have few enemies - the greatest danger to adult birds is owls and tawny owls, and martens sometimes ruin nests. One of the ringed eared owls lived in nature for 29 years and 9 months, but usually their life span is 5-10 years, and in captivity up to 50 years. Long-eared owls restore their numbers in the Moscow region with varying degrees of success. So, in 2008, ecologists specially released long-eared owls into the Vorobyovy Gory nature reserve. These birds of prey disappeared from the reserve in the late 90s of the last century. The noise and exhaust gases of the big city deprived them of comfortable nesting conditions.

Grown up chicks and adult birds form small flocks in August-September and migrate to forests - there are more rodents in winter. That is, this bird is not migratory.

You can find interesting information about owls on the sites:.

planetasov.ru

wildportal.ru/sova/sova.html

be sure to read for yourself and with the children the book of our domestic popularizer of nature I.I. Akimushkin.

Akimushkin I.I. From morning to evening. - M.: Children's literature, 1974. - 160s.

Owls live in pairs. Settlement, characteristic of most owls, contributes to the constancy of married couples. Once formed, a pair persists for many years and it is possible that throughout life.

Mating behavior and vocal responses. At what age do owls pair up? To this question, as well as to many others concerning owls, we cannot yet clearly answer. We don't even know for sure at what age. different types owls become sexually mature. Until now, there is only fragmentary information about this. So, in the regularly published magazine "Ornis Fennica" Martha Lagerstrom reports that a tawny owl chick ringed by him was found on a nest with a clutch already in the following spring, that is, at the age of about eleven months. But there are other observations as well. For example, studying the life of young fish owls in Primorye, we were convinced that in the second year of life they have not yet begun to breed. It is possible that the larger the owl, the more narrowly specialized it is in terms of nutrition, the later puberty occurs.

It is even more difficult to answer the question: at what time of the year and under what circumstances do owls pair up? In some owls that are prone to regular roaming, such as the long-eared owl, pairs are likely to occur on wintering grounds. In December-January, one can already observe the courtship of individual individuals after each other. By the end of winter, it turns out that almost all long-eared owls, although they continue to stay in flocks for some time, seem to have united in pairs. This becomes noticeable when the flock is placed on a daytime rest in the crown of a tree. It rarely happens that a second one does not sit near one owl. Young fish owls create married couples, apparently, during the summer of the second year of life. While we did not know this, we lost a lot of time searching for the nests of birds that actively call in June-July. They just turned out to be fish owls of the last year of birth, which, of course, did not yet have nests. Their offspring appeared only next spring.

Young individuals of the common owl, judging by their autumn behavior, form pairs at the end of autumn of the first year of life. In small migratory species of owls, for example, the spyushka and the Ussuri scoop, pairing occurs in the first spring of life.

Birds usually inform each other about their readiness to start breeding by a peculiar behavior - displaying. In most cases, at least in birds that are active during the day, courtship includes various demonstrative movements: the birds take bizarre poses and make unusual, sharp, conspicuous movements. To enhance the visual effect, males change into bright wedding attire by spring. For owls, such metamorphoses are uncharacteristic. Actions designed to be perceived by the organs of vision have a subordinate meaning for them. In the dark, after all, you still can’t see the details of the movements and the color of the plumage. Hearing is what helps owls not only find food, but also meet a partner.

In this connection, it is noteworthy that demonstrative behavior, in particular, peculiar current flights, is noted only in those species of owls that are not strictly nocturnal birds. So, mating flights, during which birds fly in circles over the nesting area - soar, flap their wings rapidly, sometimes make loud pops with them - are characteristic only of swamp, polar, partly hawk owls and very few other representatives. Nuptial flight may be accompanied by a cry. This is often seen in owls.

Of the effects designed for visual perception, some owls have a flickering throat spot that occurs at the moment of crying. At the same time, the feathers on the neck rise, as if protruding, which makes their light bases visible. Such a whitish spot on the throat of an owl is noticeable even in dense twilight. It oscillates in time with the cry. When you look at a hooting eagle owl or any other screaming owl, your eyes are involuntarily riveted to a flickering throat.

Most often, the current of owls is a monotonous repetition of monotonous deaf sounds by a bird calmly sitting on a tree. Moreover, the basis of the mating song is usually a specific invocative cry.

Probably, for many species of owls during the period of mating excitement, the so-called antiphonal singing is characteristic, when another bird answers the voice of one bird. In this case, a relatively long, fairly constant rhythmic roll call occurs. As a rule, two males take part in it. It is noteworthy that the tendency to antiphonal singing is already manifested in owl chicks. So, the owlets give a signal of their location very well-coordinated: one fledgling will cry, and then, as if in response to his voice, the call of the second chick is heard from another place.

From the tendency of owls to antiphonal singing, some species have developed a characteristic species mating song-duet, which is a regular alternation of the calling cries of the male and female. This is no longer a roll call of two birds, but a stable pair singing, which is perceived as a single signal. A duet song at mating season can be heard, for example, in an eagle owl, a long-eared owl, some scoops, but it is especially interesting and complex in construction in a fish owl. Schematically, the song-duet of the latter can be represented as follows.

Each of the sounds of this song is played at strictly defined intervals and, as a rule, only in the above sequence. The male starts the song. He owns the first and third sounds of the song. The second and fourth sounds are produced by the female. In the male it is "guu-guuuu", in the female the sound is thicker, rolling and low - "yyy-hyy-gyyyyyy". Almost one bird inserts its calling call in parts between the sounds made by the partner. The duration of one song is 7-8 seconds. Song after song with active currenting most often follows with an interval of 5-10 seconds.

Sometimes the mating song of owls is not a duet, but a series of sounds, as if a very peculiar trill. For example, 17-18 calls are combined into the mating song of a male short-eared owl. This song is about 4-5 seconds long. In the Great Gray Owl, the mating trill lasts 8-9 seconds. However, during this time only 12-13 screams are heard. A relatively short energetic trill (7-10 gradually weakening calls reproduced within 2.5-3 seconds) is characteristic of the boreal owl.

Snowy Owl (Nyctea scandiaca)

Whether one of the owls makes separate sounds at the time of mating excitement, whether it reproduces a trill, or a pair of owls performs a duet song, this is done many times and sometimes repeated hundreds of times in a row.

Since in owls the period of pair formation and mating itself often turn out to be significantly separated in time, the general activation of mating behavior can be quite long. The biological meaning of the spring singing of owls lies primarily in the synchronization of the sexual process, less often it serves to attract a partner to the nesting site. For this, most owls have autumn displaying. Moreover, judging by the intensity of the calls, the autumn display sometimes proceeds no less rapidly than the spring one. This is most noticeable in areas where the number of owls is low and where they have to call a lot to find a partner.

The singing of owls in spring and autumn is often regarded as a signal that the site is busy. Still, we cannot agree with this, although we do not deny the polyfunctional significance of vocal reactions in birds. The fact is that in autumn young lonely birds cry most actively. If we admit that the autumn calls of owls are functionally designed to protect some territory, in other words, to expel other representatives of the species from the site, then, undoubtedly, old birds that already have their own site would have to scream the most. The voice of owls is primarily a means of intraspecific positive communication in communication, and by no means a scare or threat.

By the way, the detection and counting of owls are mostly based on their cries during the mating season. Even if for some reason the owl is silent on one of the nights, it is very easy to provoke it to cry. It is worth imitating or playing a tape recording of her song, as an owl will certainly respond. Five or six excursions at the height of the lekking are enough to identify all the owls that live in this area. Owls call most actively on windless moonlit nights, from evening to two o'clock, and also before dawn.

Focusing on the voices of owls in the night forest, you can learn not only about the presence of these birds here. M. A. Menzbir, an outstanding Russian ornithologist, wrote about this. In his book "Birds of Russia", published in 1895, there are such lines (p. 303): "... of course, at night it is difficult to notice the habits of an owl, but its cry is so expressive that sometimes you can already determine what it is doing an owl.Here she has just flown out of her daytime shelter, which she lets know with a somewhat timid cry.Here the cry becomes animated - the owl seems to rejoice in the darkness that has come; but then something alarmed the bird or there was a quarrel with a neighbor - and anxiety is expressed in screams and dissatisfaction."

The voice of an owl is a truly amazing product of the night forest. Her mating cry is not only intense, but also quite reliably protected from interference. It stands out well from any forest noises. As studies by V. D. Ilyichev showed, the sound spectrum of the voice of many owls is usually within 400 hertz. Note that the sounds made, for example, by the robin and a number of other passerine birds, are much higher - about 5000 hertz. Interestingly, the more nocturnal an owl leads, the lower its voice. And vice versa, in many twilight and partly diurnal owls, instead of a deaf "guu", we sometimes hear a very sonorous cry like "ke-ke-ke ...", as if it were not an owl, but a diurnal one. predatory bird. Marsh, polar, hawk and some other owls have a more or less high voice.

To an inexperienced observer, it may seem that all owls cry in almost the same way. To some extent, this is true. Vocal, the possibilities of owls are limited. However, many of them, along with low sounds, are capable of making a piercing whistle. We have heard such a high, slightly rattling whistle, for example, in the Moscow Zoo from one-year-old snowy owls. Fish owls whistle high and fervently.

The organ responsible for sound production, the lower larynx, has only one pair of vocal muscles in owls. However, these birds have a well-developed vocal membrane, the structural features of which largely determine the variety of sounds produced. An idea of the degree of this diversity can only be obtained when one manages to attend the chorus of owls.

Imagine that you are in the wilds of the Ussuri region. Night. Somewhere in the crown of an old elm, the Ussuri scoop monotonously repeats its "ut-that-that". Sings measuredly, as if the clock is ticking. But then, nearby, a second bird screamed in exactly the same way. And the first one, in order to somehow stand out, immediately changes the tone of the song. It turns out to be an extremely beautiful roll call. Other owls also have the ability to change the tone of the main song, for example, the needle-nosed owl and splyushka.

More recently, with the help of a tape recorder, it was possible to identify the geographical variability of the voice of owls. So, on the basis of a tape recording of the mating song of the white-faced owl ( Otus leucotis) Wouter Wieden found that its subspecies living in Kenya and Tanzania are also well distinguished by voice.

The communicative meaning of the voice of owls is very diverse. With the help of a special sound signal, usually sharp and high, fledglings notify parents of their location so that parents can quickly find them and feed them. Owlets leave the nest very early and sometimes scatter far. A special signal is also given by adult birds, for example, in times of danger. Hearing it, the chicks freeze and stop squeaking. When quarreling, the owls squeal, expressing their displeasure with this.

In situations that require defense, less often with aggression (for example, with family strife), all owls click their beaks. This sound arises, as K. A. Yudin suggests, at the moment of jumping off of the mandible resting against the mandible. The movement is so fast that it is practically not caught by the eye. High-speed filming could help clarify how the click occurs. Some of the owls gray owl, in addition to clicking their beak, threatening, hiss.

Thus, in general, the possibilities of reproducing sounds in owls are quite large, which, under conditions of limited night visibility, is of particular importance.

Literature: Pukinsky Yu. B. Life of owls. Series: The life of our birds and animals. Issue. 1. L., Leningrad Publishing House. un-ta, 1977. 240 p.

Animals and birds have been messengers of higher powers since ancient times. With their help, people predicted fate, looked for answers to topical questions. Today, like many hundreds of years ago, signs remain relevant and do not lose their strength. The owl is a member of the owl family. Owls are well known to people in different parts of the world. Consider what they say folk wisdom about a meeting with a feathered one.

Folk signs if you saw an owl

According to folk signs, seeing an owl is in most cases an unfavorable sign. If a bird beats in the window of the house and behaves an alarming sign. In the near future, someone close to you will become seriously ill. It is worth paying more attention to dear people, your help and actions can be of great help. Enough time to notice the negative changes in appearance person and refer him to a doctor. Timely treatment and rest will avoid many negative consequences - chronic diseases and even death.

The interpretation of signs about the appearance of a bird largely depends on the specific details of the incident. Consider what the meeting with the bird is about depending on the time and days of the week:

It was believed that meeting an owl at the house in the evening promises to receive news soon. In most cases, the news will be sad. They can touch the work area, household chores or close relatives.
Seeing an owl during the day is a bad omen. Fate warns a person. If you do not show attention and discretion in a timely manner, then there is a high probability of getting into trouble.
To meet an owl near the house at night is a favorable sign. Soon you will be able to climb career ladder. Management will appreciate the diligence and offer a better position with a corresponding increase in salary. You may be able to win a large amount of money in a casino or receive an unexpected, large inheritance from a distant relative. If the feathered one was next to the car, this is a warning from higher powers. Be careful on the road, follow the rules traffic and don't take risks.

IMPORTANT! According to popular beliefs, domestic owls were mascots. They protected family well-being and happiness, protected from quarrels and diverted bad energy.

Owl bird photo and signs

Owl signs and superstitions associated with a bird are distinguished by a negative color. Today there is no reliable data on the reason for such a negative opinion. Most likely the reason lies in the nocturnal lifestyle of the bird. There are many secrets and dangers in the darkness. Even a meeting with a bird during sleep bodes ill. What he sees promises the dreamer loneliness. A person will not be able to find his soul mate or lose her through his own stupidity. Meeting with an owl in reality often promises troubles and problems.

IMPORTANT! Beliefs about owls do not always promise trouble and grief. Much depends on the inner mood of the person and the specific situation.

See the owl ancient signs

Owls are nocturnal creatures. It is not surprising that since ancient times they have had a special attitude. Mystical creatures were often regarded as messengers of fate.

Seeing an owl near the house is an alarming sign. The home and its owner are in danger. You should be vigilant - turn off electrical appliances and close the doors with a key when leaving the apartment. Otherwise, there is a high risk of fire or robbery.

Another interesting sign is to see an owl sitting on the roof of the house. According to folk signs, the event promises financial difficulties. You should not make risky cash transactions, deposits or transactions in the near future.

The owl screams near the house signs and superstitions

According to folk signs, if an owl screams near a house, this is a bad omen, as well as. Feathered warns a person of an impending disaster. Trouble may arise in financial terms. One of your work colleagues will seriously set you up, and you will lose your position or an important deal will fail. You can lose your wealth because of scammers. In public places and cultural events Be careful with your belongings and do not leave them unattended.