On 12/10/07 07:04, in article ,
"JakeD" wrote:

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:28:42 +0100, Sacha
wrote:
snip
The Tawny Owls are flying
again and I heard them at 6am today in the garden. Just a few nights ago we
went to our local for supper and could hear a parent in a nearby tree
calling the young. I think that's all part of the training them to feed and
to maintain a territory. Whatever it is, it's wonderful! Having lost two
trees in the neighbouring churchyard in which they both roosted and nested,
the rooks are now noisily sorting out new territory for themselves in our
garden. The main hub of their activity has always been the Atlantic cedar
at the end of our main lawn but we think they're now going to colonise a
copper beech even more heavily - thus inevitably hastening its demise - and
are taking over another conifer that they have, so far, ignored.

Thank you for the response and advice. Yes, tawny owls are wonderful
to hear, aren't they? Each one seems to have a different call. Last
Summer I went off hiking and camping on my own in the wilds. Soon
after I was bedded down, the silence was broken by a tawny owl up in a
tree, directly overhead. Gorgeous sound. So much more musical than the
call of the crow which you also mentioned... They sound almost
ominous to me. Where I live, they seem to throng in the big trees
surrounding a big spooky old dilapidated country house near here, the
spooky inhabitant of which no-one ever quite sees...

JD

Then those are rooks. Three crows together are rooks, one rook alone is a
crow. ;-) Rooks are extremely sociable creatures and some colonies remain
in situ for hundreds of years. They're also supposed to bring good luck!
I'm so used to their noise now that I miss them if they're silent. The
tawnies do seem to have different calls, yes. Certainly there's a
territorial one and then a high pitched one on a single note which is
parents and young communicating.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'