An owl is a mysterious bird that is interesting for its grandeur, arrogant gaze and unusual way of life. It is the latter that is often the reason that this bird is ranked as the retinue of Evil Power. Nightlife not only gives it mystery, but also instills a little fear in people.

Signs: true or false

For many centuries, people have observed various natural phenomena, animal habits, eventually linking everything that happens to a logical picture. The signs embodied various observations of the ancestors. There are allegations that smack of only the desire to intimidate and thereby warn, but the majority will take up to date now. This can be seen from your own experience.

Will take a lot associated with owls. They have long been considered unusual birds, attributing to them a deep knowledge of the essence of being, fearlessness, belonging to something otherworldly. This may explain the fact that the beliefs about owls have a negative color. Knowledgeable people say that if an owl dreamed, was close to home or just had to hear her cry, then you will not have to expect anything good. On the contrary, it is a kind of warning that something unpleasant or even dangerous will happen soon.

What does an owl scream about?

In many cultures, the owl is considered an ominous bird. About it speak and signs - owls bring a bad sign.

If the owl screams near the apartment building, then soon there will be a misfortune - a man will die. The cry of an owl is like a misfortune. Even if everything is smooth in the family, and no one is sick, trouble may suddenly come unexpectedly. Not necessarily, what will happen irreparable, it is likely that the person is seriously ill. A very bad sign if an owl flew into the house through an open window.

According to beliefs, the owl screams with its own voice to sudden death. She also announces the imminent appearance of the baby in an unmarried woman or widow. It is undesirable to look at an owl in the afternoon or look in its nest. This can attract troubles and diseases.

An owl sitting on a church warns of a quick change of priest, his death or the destruction of the church. If at the same time the owl crouched on the cross, then this may indicate a fire.

In the spring, the owl's cry proclaims the flood and many troubles associated with it. No good is worth waiting for if the owl living near the apartment building has flown away.

Just a couple will promise something pleasant. If an owl jumps and makes sounds on the roof of a house in which a seriously ill person lives, then he can count on a quick recovery. It is also considered good if the owl has sat down on a tree growing near the house - households are waiting for a profit.

Particularly superstitious people should not immediately become disheartened when they hear the "ugukane" owls. If you treat him as a warning and try to be a little more careful in everyday life, then the misfortune will pass by.

Question: What bird screams at night and does not allow to sleep?

These lingering mournful sounds that the inhabitants of the Venyukovo microdistrict heard in July in a row. Meet - this is an eared owl. But the cries are published by the eared owl chicks. This type of owl is relatively calm about the neighborhood with a man, although loud noises, crashing, music scare the birds. Owls hunt relentlessly all night, and flocks of mouse rodents retreat from our homes. Here owls have a distinct advantage, since This is a wild species specializing in mice. Urban cats and cats can not catch as many rodents, even if they continuously hunt those 8 hours that do not sleep. Our pets (cats, dogs), in the second place - children, in the third - ourselves, are defenseless before diseases, carried by mice and voles. The most dangerous, transmitted including from mice to cats, dogs, domestic ungulates, people, should be considered the following: leptospirosis, toxoplasmosis, helminthiasis, rabies and lichen. Without medical care in none of these cases can not do. In cats, chlamydia most often develops. In the feces of mice, their urine can be bacteria that cause tularemia, typhus. Viruses causing hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in humans and animals reproduce in the body of rodent mites. There are many haemorrhagic fevers: Crimean, Omsk, Argentine, Bolivian, Central Asian, yellow fever, Ebola, Lassa, Dange, Marburg disease and others.

Listen to the owl scream.

Now just imagine that these hordes of rodents will walk in children's sandboxes, basements, entrances, walkways in squares ...

Let's go back to the owls. Eagle owls, medium-sized birds: female weight 300g, male 250g. You will immediately distinguish it by the large feather ears (up to 5 cm), bright orange color of the iris of the eyes and the presence on each feather of the underside of the body along with the longitudinal variegations of a thin streamy transverse pattern. The top is grayish-brown with a dark marble pattern, the bottom is rusty yellowish. This camouflage coloring helps to merge with the bark of the trees during the day when the owl is sleeping. In the afternoon he sits, stretched out and pressed against a tree trunk. The mating flight is zigzagging, from tree to tree; in the spring on the fly sometimes loudly flapping their wings. The voice is a deaf “hu-huu” or a plaintive “yyy.” But in the nonstop time, eared owls are silent. If you find it with your child, explain that you need to quietly satisfy your curiosity so as not to frighten the bird. Let the night guard of our hygiene rest, because he has a difficult and dangerous job in nature.

The inhabitants of our city, whose windows overlook the field and near there are tall trees, environmentalists advise to find out in winter time whether there are crows nests on these trees and try to eliminate them on their own or with the help of housing and utilities services. Ordinarily, a couple already in March or April will clean up an abandoned nest of a crow, thrush, buzzard or hollow. Therefore, if there is no nest, there are no feeding chicks in front of your window. The female incubates the eggs as soon as the first egg is laid. Chicks have a strong age difference. The newborn owl weighs about 20 grams and is covered with white, relatively sparse fluff through which pinkish skin shines through. Eyes and ear holes are closed, and he himself seems to be extremely helpless. However, it is necessary to touch the chick, as he immediately raises his head and shakes it in search of food brought. Left alone, the owlet cools rapidly and begins peep. To keep warm at night, the chicks huddle a friend to a friend. Their pen is light, has a unique structure, because no other birds found. While waiting for their parents, the owls are sitting in a tight pile, heating  each other. Nestling "pyramid" is far from being built. Usually the elder chick sits in the center, and his head always rises above the "pile of bodies". The rest of the owl huddle back to him. The smallest chicks and eggs are at the bottom. According to their prolonged shouts, parents locate the chicks (all parents are calmer if they know where their children are) and the degree of feeding of offspring. Growing owl organisms are very voracious - they need 2-4 mice to sleep. As they are fed up, they cease to give a cry (most often parents cope with feeding the chicks by 2.00. - 2.30 am). Owls get lunch for themselves and return to the nest. Usually, the cries are heard for three weeks, and then the first chicks try to try themselves in flight. These flight feats are dictated not only by their children's restlessness, but by the innate instinct of self-preservation, since if a predator finds a nest, not all will die.

In the hunt of owls, acute vision helps. Owl eyes have a telescopic shape (in the form of a cylinder, narrowed in front and extended posteriorly). The owl lens is located not in a flattened eyeball, like in other birds, but in a deep horn tube. In essence, this is a high-aperture telephoto lens. The huge pupil uses the smallest amount of light. An eared owl notices a mouse on an average contrasting background with the intensity of light created by a single stearic candle 650 meters away from the candle. In owls, in contrast to daytime animals, rods predominate in the retina, providing twilight vision. Owl colors are perceived poorly. The eyes of owls can be seen not only in the thick twilight, but also in the daytime. For a long time, without blinking, the owl often looks at the bright sky. Observing the behavior of the owl during the day, it is impossible not to be surprised how far he sees a flying day-time predator or a crow, even if he is looking against the sun. This is explained by the fact that the owl has an amazing ability to reduce the size of the pupil, as if to its diaphragm. Of course, if an owl is suddenly lit up in the dark or by day scared from a dark hollow, she is not immediately able to see well around, as it takes time to adapt her eyes. However, owls do it relatively quickly. Owls are long-sighted birds and it doesn’t matter that they are very close to them. It is not difficult to make sure that if the scoop (tame, of course) quickly brings even the favorite food to the very eyes, then it doesn’t react to it at all. However, it is necessary to move the feed at least ten centimeters, as the bird immediately notices her and seizes it. The fact that owls do not use sight at close distances can be judged by the following fact. When an owl brings food to its mouth, it closes its eyes each time. Having bent down, the bird usually touches the prey with its beak and the surrounding bristles, finds its head and, making sure by touch that the prey is dead, begins to eat it.

The color of the iris of owls often amazes the observer. It can be bright orange, almost red, such as, for example, in a long-eared owl, or lemon yellow, as in a marsh owl and owls, or, finally, a dark-brown, as in most diabetic. With age, the color of the iris usually changes, becoming more and more intense. In chicks, as a rule, the eyes are light brown. The coloring of the iris is not directly related to vision. With little light, when owls usually hunt, their iris is almost completely invisible - the whole pupil is occupied by a dark pupil. The area of ​​the iris increases and shrinks autonomously in each of the eyes. You can easily see this by observing the owl partially illuminated by the sun glare.
  When you look at an owl, you unwittingly pay attention to the unusual nature of blinking eyes. Most birds, blinking, raise the lower eyelid up, while covering the eye with a blinking membrane. But owls act differently, almost like people: they blink and lower their upper eyelids down. The frequent blinking (lowering of the century) indicates the disturbance of the bird. A worried owl, before flying away, usually begins to “offended” to blink. However, if the owl is calm and, falling asleep, covers her eyes, she does it like all other birds: the lower eyelid lifts upward. In other words, the nature of the owl can be judged by the nature of the blinking.

Owls have amazing hearing. The flattened plumage surrounding the ear apertures forms sound absorbing horns that direct sound waves to the ears, two large vertical slots on the sides of the skull. Sometimes they are "cross-eyed" (or, rather, "oblique"), located one above the other; By manipulating the outer ears, owls can change the size of the crevices. All this allows them to ideally accurately calculate the location of the victim, appreciating the tiny time difference that the sound from the murmuring mouse takes to reach each of the ears. For hunting in pitch darkness, some species of owls are quite costing by ear.

In addition to unique hearing and vision, the evolution of award silent flight. The paws and torso of these birds are covered with thick downy feathers, even their primary feathers are rounded at the ends and bent towards the body, and the outer sheaths of the first three feathers are often fringed or serrated toothed. Because of this, owls seem much larger than they really are. All the same eared owl has a wingspan of 92 cm, but it weighs no more than an orange. Hiding, she retracts feathers, making her look like a fat bitch.

Adult owls are skillful hunters not only because nature has awarded them sharp eyes, absolute hearing, noiseless flight, but also because of hunting tactics. If it is a field or a meadow, the owl catches the prey from the flight. A mouse is noticed by a bird from a height of 2–4 m or is detected by a sound with an accuracy of 1 cm, the owl decreases and makes a throw from a height of 1.5–3 m. If it is a difficult relief with fences, buildings, hills, then owls ambush - they are on duty at some branch, pole, fence. On windless, dry nights, hunting is especially successful. In rare cases, ambush right on the ground, or low stumps. The rodent is eaten entirely, only the chicks of the mouse are divided into several parts, and for the smallest, partially removed from the skin. In an outburst of parental care for food, owl chicks can fly around up to 100 km2. Even such dedication does not always allow you to feed the entire clutch, because not all the years have enough rodents, crows often ruin nests, and in settlements there are people (both children and adults who shoot birds with air pistols). Owls have few enemies in the wild - the greatest danger to adult birds is owls and tillers, and martens sometimes ruin nests. One of the ringed eared owls lived in nature for 29 years and 9 months, but usually their lifespan is 5-10 years, and in captivity up to 50 years. Eared owls recover their numbers in the Moscow region with varying success. So, in 2008, environmentalists specially released long-eared owls into the natural reserve "Sparrow Hills". These birds of prey disappeared from the reserve in the late 90s of the last century. Noise and exhaust gases of the big city deprived them of comfortable conditions for nesting.

Grown up chicks and adult birds in August-September form small flocks migrate to the forests - there are more rodents there in winter. That is, this bird is not migratory.

Owls are very useful birds. They prey on mice and other rodents that eat grain, and thus preserve our crops. A single owl can catch over a thousand mice per year, saving us several tons of grain. In addition, owls catch and eat insects - pests of gardens, forests and fields. Beneficial effect  The activity of owls is enhanced by the fact that they hunt at night when other winged predators are asleep.

Interesting information about the owls you can find on the sites :.

planetasov.ru

wildportal.ru/sova/sova.html

be sure to read the book and our children’s popularisator of nature, I.I. Akimushkina.

Akimushkin I.I. From morning to evening. - M .: Children's literature, 1974. - 160s.

Owls live in pairs. Typical for most owl sedality contributes to the constancy of married couples. Once the resulting pair is stored for many years and it is possible that throughout life.

Marital Behavior and Voice Responses. At what age do owls pair up? We cannot yet clearly answer this question, like many others concerning owls. We do not even know exactly at what age different species of owls become sexually mature. So far, only fragmentary information is available on this. So, in the regularly published magazine "Ornis Fennica" Martha Lagerstrom reports that the nestling of long-tailed eagle owl, ringed by him, was found on the nest with clutch the very next spring, that is, at the age of about eleven months. But there are observations and a different order. For example, studying the life of young fish owls in Primorye, we were convinced that in the second year of life they did not start breeding. It is possible that the larger the owl, the more narrowly specialized it is with regard to nutrition, the later puberty comes.

It is even more difficult to answer the question: at what time of year and under what circumstances do owls come together in pairs? In some owls that are prone to regular migrations, for example, in the long-eared owl, couples, in all likelihood, occur during wintering periods. In December and January, you can already observe the courtship of individuals behind each other. By the end of the winter, it turns out that almost all eared owls, although they continue to stay in flocks for some time, seem to be united in pairs. This becomes noticeable when the flock is placed on a day rest in the crown of some tree. It rarely happens that a second owl does not sit next to one owl. Young fish owls create married couples, apparently, during the summer of the second year of life. While we did not know this, we lost a lot of time searching for bird nests that were actively screaming in June and July. The fish owl of the last year of birth, which, of course, did not yet have nests, turned out to be just them. The offspring of them appeared only in the next spring.

Juveniles of common owl, judging by their autumn behavior, form pairs in the late fall of the first year of life. In small migratory species of owls, for example, in a splyushka and an Ussurian moth, pairing occurs in the first spring of life.

Birds usually inform each other about their readiness to start breeding by their peculiar behavior - overcurrent. In most cases, at least in birds that are active during the day, the overcurrent includes various demonstrative movements: birds take bizarre poses and make unusual, sharp, glaring movements. To enhance the visual effect of the males in the spring dressed in bright nuptial dresses. For owls, such metamorphoses are uncharacteristic. Actions calculated on the perception by the organs of sight have a subordinate meaning. In the dark, it is still not to consider the details of the movements and the color of the plumage. Hearing is what helps owls not only to find food, but also to meet a partner.

In this connection, it is noteworthy that demonstrative behavior, in particular, peculiar current flights, is observed only in those species of owls that are not strictly night birds. So, mating flights, during which birds fly around the nesting area in circles — hover, flapping their wings and sometimes give out loud pops — they are characteristic only of swamp, polar, partly hawkish owls and very few other representatives. Marriage flight may be accompanied by a cry. This is often observed in taliban.

Of the effects designed for visual perception, some owls are characterized by the twinkling of the throat spot that occurs at the moment of crying. At the same time, feathers on the neck rise, as if bulging, which is why their bright bases become visible. Such a whitish spot on the throat of an owl is noticeable even in dense twilight. It hesitates in time with a cry. When you look at a hooting owl or some other screaming owl, your eyes involuntarily riveted to the flickering throat.

Most often, the current of owls is a monotonous repetition of monotonous deaf sounds of a bird quietly sitting on a tree. Moreover, the basis of the marriage song is usually a species invocation cry.

Probably, for many species of owls during the period of marital arousal, so-called antiphonal singing is characteristic, when another responds to the voice of one bird. At the same time, a relatively long rhythm, rather constant in rhythm, occurs. As a rule, two males take part in it. It is noteworthy that the tendency to antiphonal singing is already manifested in the nestlings of owls. Thus, the owl gives a warning signal about its location very smoothly: one of the children will shout, and then, as if in response to his voice, the call of the second chick is heard from another place.

From the tendencies of owls to antiphonal singing, in some species a characteristic species mating duet song has developed, which is a regular alternation of the call-up cries of the male and the female. This is not a roll call of two birds, but a stable pair singing, which is perceived as a single signal. The song duet in the mating season can be heard, for example, in the eagle owl, eared owl, some scoops, but it is especially interesting and complicated by the construction of the fish owl. The song-duet of the latter can be schematically represented as follows.

Each of the sounds of this song is played at strictly defined intervals and, as a rule, only in the above sequence. The male starts the song. He owns the first and third sounds of the song. The second and fourth sounds are played by the female. In the male it is “guu-guuuu”, in the female the sound is thicker, rolling and low - “yyy-hyy-gyyyyyy”. Practically one bird inserts its draft cry in parts between the sounds made by the partner. Duration of one song is 7-8 seconds. Song by song with the active token usually follows with an interval of 5-10 seconds.

Sometimes the owls' marriage song is not a duet, but a series of sounds, as if a very peculiar trill. For example, 17-18 shouts are combined into a mating song of a male marsh owl. This song lasts about 4-5 seconds. In a bearded owl, the marriage trill lasts 8-9 seconds. However, during this time, only 12-13 shouts are heard. A relatively short, energetic trill (7-10 gradually fading screams, reproduced within 2.5-3 seconds) is characteristic of the blue-nosed owl.

White or polar owl (Nyctea scandiaca)

Whether one of the owls makes separate sounds at the time of marital excitement, whether the trill reproduces, or a couple of owls perform a duet song, this is done many times and sometimes repeated hundreds of times in a row.

Since the period of pairing and the pairing itself in the owls often turn out to be significantly separated in time, the overall activation of marital behavior is quite long. The biological sense of spring owl singing consists primarily in the synchronization of the sexual process, less often it serves to attract a partner to the nesting site. For this, most owls have an autumnal overcurrent. And, judging by the intensity of the screams, the autumn overcurrent sometimes runs no less violently than the spring one. This is most noticeable in areas where the number of owls is low and where they have to haul especially a lot to find a partner.

Spring and autumn singing of owls is often regarded as a signal of a busy site. We still can not agree with this, although we do not deny the multifunctional meaning of voice reactions in birds. The fact is that in the fall young single birds scream most actively. If we recognize that the owls' autumn cries are functionally designed to protect some territory, in other words, to expel other representatives of the species from the site, then undoubtedly, the old birds that already have their own area would most of all shout. Owls' voice is primarily a means of intraspecific positive communication in communication, and not at all scaring or threatening.

By the way, the detection and recording of owls is mostly based on their screams in the mating season. Even if for some reason the owl is silent on one of the nights, it is very easy to provoke her to cry. It is necessary to imitate or reproduce the tape recording of her song, as the owl will certainly respond. Five to six excursions in the midst of tokanie enough to reveal all the owls that live in this area. Owls scream most actively during windless moon nights, from evening to two hours, and also before dawn.

Focusing on the voices of owls in the night forest, you can learn not only about the presence of these birds here. M. A. Menzbir, an eminent Russian ornithologist, wrote about this. In his book "Birds of Russia", published in 1895, there are such lines (p. 303): "... Of course, at night it is difficult to notice the habits of an owl, but its cry is so expressive that sometimes you can already determine from it owl. She just flew out of her daytime shelter, which she lets know with a somewhat shy cry. and discontent. "

The owl's voice is a truly amazing creature of the night forest. Her marriage cry is not only intense, but also reliably protected from interference. It stands out well among any forest noise. As VD Il'ichev's research showed, the sound spectrum of the voice of many owls is usually within 400 hertz. Note that the sounds made, for example, by the charger and a number of other passerines, are much higher - about 5000 hertz. It is interesting that the more nocturnal the owl leads, the lower its voice. Conversely, in many twilight and partly day owls, instead of the deaf "guu", we sometimes hear a very sonorous cry like "ke-ke-ke ..." - as if it was not an owl, but a day-bird of prey shouting. Marsh, polar, hawk and some other owls have a more or less high voice.

To an inexperienced observer, it may seem that all owls scream almost equally. To some extent it is. Vocal, the possibilities of owls are limited. However, many of them, along with low sounds, can emit a shrill whistle. We had heard such a tall, slightly raspy whistle, for example, at the Moscow Zoo from one-year-old polar owls. High and fervently whistling fish owls.

The organ responsible for producing sound, the lower larynx, has only one pair of vocal muscles in owls. However, these birds have a well-developed vocal membrane, on the characteristics of the structure of which the variety of sounds produced largely depends. An idea of ​​the degree of this diversity can be obtained only when it is possible to attend the choir of Sov.

Imagine that you are in the wilds of the Ussuri region. Night. Somewhere in the crown of the old elm, the Ussurian scoop monotonously repeats its "ut-that-that". Sings measuredly, like a clock ticking. But a second bird screamed nearby. And the first, to somehow stand out, immediately changes the tone of the song. It turns out to be extremely beautiful roll call. The ability to change the tone of the main song has other owls, such as iglopek owl and splyushka.

More recently, with the help of a tape recorder, it was possible to reveal the geographical variability of the voice of owls. So, on the basis of a tape recording of a marriage song by a white-faced scoop ( Otus leucotis) Wouter Wieden found that its subspecies that live in Kenya and Tanzania, are well distinguished by voice.

The communicative meaning of the voice of owls is very diverse. With the help of a special sound signal, usually sharp and high, splashes notify parents of their whereabouts, so that parents can quickly find and feed them. The owls leave the nest very early and sometimes fly far away. A special signal is also given by adult birds, for example, during a danger. Upon hearing it, the chicks freeze and stop beeping. Arguing, owls squeal, expressing this their discontent.

In situations that call for defense, less often in aggression (for example, in family discord), all owls click their beak. This sound arises, as KA Yudin suggests, at the moment of jumping off of the upper mandible, which rests against the mandible. The movement is so fast that it is almost not caught by the eye. High-speed filming could help clarify how a click occurs. Some of the owls, for example, the bearded owl, besides clicking on the beak, threaten and hiss.

Thus, on the whole, the possibilities of sound reproduction for owls are large enough, which is of particular importance in conditions of limited night visibility.

Literature: Pukinsky Yu. B. Life owls. Series: The life of our birds and animals. Issue 1. L., Publishing House Leningrad. University, 1977. 240 p.