11th December
A nocturnal species for a post written at night. No more preamble today!
Tawny Owl Strix aluco Linnaeus, 1758
Last night I went to bed in a not great mood, what with the news and all that. And I woke up similarly in a not great mood which has lasted most of the day, just hidden it away, tomorrow is another day. Anyway, before I dropped off to sleep the noise of the night air was punctured by a familiar screech. A Tawny Owl. Tawny Owl’s are resident in the UK, and indeed we have our own sub-species/race/morph (depends who you read!) compared to the rest of Europe and elsewhere. Because Tawny Owls don’t migrate and barely move from their home territories at all they have begun to evolve towards a different species, this is due to the UK has been cut off from mainland Europe for 10,000 years or so, so our owls have not had any new blood so to speak for that long. Birds from Britain are paler in colour than continental birds. For more info see this article: https://www.owlpages.com/download/Martin_and_Mikkola,_2014,_The_Changing_face_of_the_Tawny_Owl.pdf. I love tawny owls but I rarely see them but I hear them most nights. I mean who doesn’t love an owl?!
Advent species so far:
- 1st: Goosander Mergus merganser
- 2nd: December Moth Poecilocampa populi
- 3rd: Horse Chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum
- 4th Black-headed Gull Chroicocephalus ridibundus
- 5th Cape Sparrow Passer melanurus
- 6th Loricera pilicornis
- 7th Great Tit Parus major
- 8th Tipula paludosa
- 9th Redwing Turdus iliacus
- 10th Bank Vole Myodes glareolus
- 11th Tawny Owl Strix aluco
A Species a Day 