A Bird in the Hand ©Eric Wood
I’ve just spent a very pleasant day in the company of two experts, and two families of Little owls. It is always a joy to work with skilled and knowledgeable people, and thanks to the efforts of Geoff and Eric of the Tees Ringing Group, I now have microphones inside two owl boxes in North Yorkshire.
One box has just a single chick, barely a week old, so this site should be good for getting some clean vocabulary recordings; the other has two slightly older chicks, and from previous experience this one should be a bit noisier – lots of potential for a bit of sibling bickering later on. I was thrilled to get some good recordings on the first night.
Listen here to the calls of adult and chick
Plan A is to visit every three days or so, to record how their calls evolve from squeaking to hissing, and hopefully get some more adult calls. Fingers crossed. They are fantastic little birds, and I can think of few things better than spending some summer evenings sitting in the beautiful Yorkshire countryside with the recorders running. I just hope it stops raining.
first analysis of the chick begging call
Simon Elliott 