The characteristic fluted hoot of the Tawny Owl, uttered during the late autumn and winter months, will be familiar to many observers. Although sometimes described as a twit-twoo, the hoot actually consists of three distinct notes drawn together. This call is typically uttered by the male. The female will make a similar call, though less clear, hoarser and slightly higher in pitch.

Another familiar call is the kee-wick (or cu-weeht) call that may have a contact function, though may also have an aggressive role, perhaps whem settling territorial disputes. Both sexes make this kee-wick call. One other call (not illustrated here) that may sometimes be heard is a series of rolling trills, uttered in duet during courtship.

Two different series of calls are available from download. The first of these (CALLS ONE) highlights the main territorial call of the male (the 'hooting' that we are listening for in the Garden BirdWatch component of the Tawny Owl survey), with some soft kee-wicks in the background. The second (CALLS TWO) highlights the kee-wick calls.

Both sets of calls have been very kindly provided by Geoff Sample. Geoff is the sound recordist behind a whole series of excellent CDs illustrating bird song and produced by Collins. Click here to visit Geoff's website and find out more about his work. The copyright of these recordings remains with Geoff Sample.

The calls are provided in three common formats and you should find that you have a package on your computer that can play at least one of the different formats. You will see that the WAV format results in a very large file and we have not added the WAV version of the longer CALLS Two for this reason. Real Audio Player (used to play Real Audio files) can be downloaded from the web - see here for more details.