Hi. Can anyone make a suggestion for the identity of the bird that we hear at night calling in the fields and woods surrounding our tiny Devon hamlet? Can't see it (it's dark!) and it seems to call before flying from one perch to another .. we can hear a faint reply sometimes. Its call is a long drawn out and quite loud squeak; nothing like the "twit" or "twoo" of the owls, although we often hear both barn and tawny owls - I've listened to the nightjar recording on the website, and it's not that either. In tone it's not disimilar to a blackbird's warning call, but just one shrill note, there's no variance or undulation I can pick up on. My daughter has named it "Mr Squeaky, The Squeaky Bird". It's driving me mad not knowing, but as a wise person once said, "You don't know what you don't know"! If anyone has ideas for what it might be, I can listen to the calls on the website and hopefully ID it. I will report back if I find out!
If you have a poulation of owls nearby, could it be a young owl food calling?
Titian,this certainly sounds like young Tawny Owls making their presence feli and probably still shouting for food.The "twitting" and "twooing" is the call between the two sexes but youngsters seem to just to make a horrible screeching noise,we are getting this in our area at the moment
Sounds entirely possible ... I can hear both calls at the same time so it would make sense that the parents are out hunting and Junior is making his/her demands! It really is an incredibly loud shout, I canm see that it'd be effective! Thanks both!
Yes,if you had to listen to that noise for long you would soon put a small mammal in there to shut it up
Told my daughter ... she has the same love of owls as many of the Rowling generation and the news it was probably an owlet provoked the response, "I've been praying that an owl would come and eat it!" She is now delighted to learn she has a baby owl living next to her bedroom window!