Owlsh........

[TheOstrich]

I have a query about owlsh ..... can any kind VV'ers help?

(You'll have to excuse me, I don't sleep well in this hot weather, and I won two bottlesh of wine on the tombola at the charity football match last Saturday, so I'm simultaneously tired and hung-over this morning ....)

Anyway, back to the owlsh .... which blinkin well helped to keep me awake last night, hootin' outside the bleddy bedroom window ...

As far as I'm aware, the owlsh wot goes "We-EEEP, we-EEEP" is coloqueally ... colloquilley ..... errr, usually known as a screech owl, but is in reality a barn owl.

So wot's the variety of owlsh I heard last night that goes, as is traditional, "wheeet ........ wheet - wooooooooo"

Any help with identification gratefully received (or failing that, offers of a loan of a shot-gun for tonight .....)

[Workingman]

http://www.owlpages.com/sounds.php

There are a few to go through..... they might put you to sleep.

[Aggers]

Sorry, Os., but I'm into nature conservation so I can't lend you my shotgun.

As regards identification, this might help....

http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdgui ... /owls.aspx

[Kaz]

Oooh better be careful - that sounds like those danged Ostrich Eating Giant Owlsh to me

[TheOstrich]

Ye Gods, WM - how many owlsh ish there????

Anyway, thanks to those recordings, and Aggers descriptions, I believe it was a Eurasian Tawny Owl, which is apparently pretty common in this country.

However, if it turns up again tonight, there'll only be 38,799 of 'em left ....

@ Kaz ...

[Diflower]

Yes I was going to say Tawny, that's what we generally hear
Can't sympathise at all though Ossie, no birds have ever annoyed me, whether at midnight or the dawn chorus

Except the gulls We don't get many, but sometimes they circle over the garden, making that awful racket - I go indoors in case I get pooped on

[TheOstrich]

..... I go indoors in case I get pooped on

Ha, yes, Di ..... Mrs O was in a gibbering rage yesterday because a pigeon pooped, with no mean precision, not only over part of our washing out on the line, but in such a way that the mess actually went into one of the pockets of Master O's trousers.

They must have been practising for months to get that degree of accuracy ....