The tytonidae and the strigidae(owls) family.

Part one tawny and barn owls.

These two birds are fundamental to the British countryside,There's nothing more magical than seeing a barn owl hunting at early evening over a meadow on a summers night as the sun starts to set.Barn owls prey mainly on voles,rats and mice and this is what is fed to the chicks.A barn owls clutch varies from three to eleven eggs,depending on the food that's available.The male will feed the female during the 32 day incubation.But if food runs short due to supply or bad weather the eldest chicks will eat the smallest member of the group.Year after year many barn owls return to established roosts and breeding sites,these are normally at old barns ruined building or hollows in trees(unlike tawny owls, barn owls likes to have an elongated hollow in an old oak tree).The adult has white underparts,and golden-buff upper parts mottled with grey,And they have white faces.Both the sexes are alike,and about 34 Cm's in size.They breed from February to November and have a eerie,prolonged shriek that's often uttered in flight.Like the adult birds,Their young make a hissing noise,But if they get disturbed they will snap their bills together loudly.The young fly at about ten weeks old.Tawny owls are slightly bigger than barn owls,up to 38 Cm's in height,Their call is a 'hoo hoo hoo......hooooo' and not a 'too Whit too woo' as is more commonly thought.Their Young will call 'ke wick'.so you may sometime hear the adult bird calling to their young.Owls are silent in flight because of their soft plumage and the comb like leading edge to their wingtip,This allows the tawny owl to pounce from a perch,unheard by its prey.The tawny owl has really sensitive eyes and ears,This enable them to locate its prey in a really dim light.Their diet consists of small mammals,frogs,fish,insects and if the weather gets bad they will even eat worms from the floor.They nest in woodland,farmland and large gardens that have mature timbers.They nest in shallow scrapes at the bottom of tree holes,A single clutch is born in march of up to seven eggs,They are laid in intervals of up to a week,The incubation starts with the first egg and are white in colour,so once again like the barn owl there will be a big difference in the size of the chicks.Their young fly after about five weeks,after they have branched they will stay close to the parent birds.They have big black eyes to show they will hunt at dusk or at night,Both sexes are alike with their dark brown faces,and dark brown primary feathers that are creamy and brown underneath.Recently because of habitat loss for the tawny owl and loss of barns for the barn owl their numbers have started to decline .I want you to tell me of sightings of these two magnificent birds of prey,or if you have heard them calling let me know so i can start to find out how many of these birds there are around the Droitwich spa area,Because i have seen tawny and barn owl's that i have watched and studied move away from their old roosts because of a loss of a barn they were in and mature trees have been felled,Is this the story from other areas around the Droitwich spa area?