Owl is a mysterious bird that is interesting for its greatness, arrogant gaze and unusual way of life. It is the latter that is often the cause of the fact that this bird is ranked as a retinue of Evil Force. 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, habits of animals, connecting in the end everything that happens in a logical picture. In the signs embodied various observations of ancestors. There are statements that smack of nothing but a desire to intimidate and thereby caution, but most will accept the actual and now. This can be seen from own experience.

A lot will take about owls. They have long been considered unusual birds, attributing them a deep knowledge of the essence of being, fearlessness, belonging to something otherworldly. This can also be explained by the fact that the beliefs about owls have a negative color. Knowledgeable people say that if the owl had a dream, was not far from home or just happened to hear her scream, then you will not have to wait for something good. On the contrary, it is a kind of warning that something unpleasant or even dangerous will happen soon.

What is the owl shouting about?

In many cultures, the owl is considered an ominous bird. This is indicated by signs - owls bear a bad sign.

If the owl screams near the apartment house, then soon there will be a misfortune - a person will die. The owl's cry sounds like a disaster. Even if everything is smooth in the family, and no one is sick, then the disaster can come unexpectedly. It is not necessarily that irreparable will happen, it is likely that a person will become seriously ill. A very bad sign if the owl flew into the house through an open window.

According to the beliefs, the owl screams not in his voice to sudden death. She also notifies the imminent appearance of the baby from an unmarried woman or widow. It is not advisable to look at an owl during the day or to look into its nest. This can attract troubles and illnesses.

The owl, sitting on the church, warns of the imminent replacement of the priest, his death or the destruction of the church. If the owl sits on the cross, this may indicate a fire.

In the spring, the owl's cry tells of the flood and many troubles associated with it. Nothing good is worth waiting for if the owl living close to the house has flown away.

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

Especially superstitious people should not immediately become discouraged when they hear the "hooting" of an owl. If you treat him as a warning and try to be a little more cautious in your daily life, then the misfortune will pass by.

Owls live in pairs. Characteristic for most of the Soviets is the settled nature of the permanence of married couples. Once formed pair persists for many years and it is possible that throughout life.

Marriage behavior and voice reactions. At what age do owls pair? This question, as well as many other questions concerning owls, we can not yet clearly answer. We do not even know exactly at what age different kinds of owls are becoming sexually mature. Until now, there is only fragmentary information about this. Thus, in a regularly published magazine "Ornis Fennica" Marta Lagerstrom reports that a nestling of a long-tailed owl was ringed to him in a nest with a clutch in the next spring, that is, at the age of about eleven months. But there are observations of a different order. For example, studying the life of young fish fillets in Primorye, we were convinced that in the second year of life they are not yet beginning to reproduce. It is possible that the larger the owl, the more narrowly it is specialized in relation to nutrition, the later puberty comes.

Even more difficult to answer the question: at what time of the year and under what circumstances do owls pair up? Some owls, prone to regular nomadic movements, for example, a long-eared owl, are likely to spawn on hibernations. In December and January, one can already observe courtship of individual individuals one after the other. By the end of the winter it turns out that almost all eared owls, although they continue to stay for a while in flocks, seem to have merged into pairs. This becomes noticeable when the pack is placed on a day's rest in the crown of some tree. It seldom happens that near the one owl the second one does not sit. Young fish owls create married couples, apparently during the summer of the second year of life. While we were not aware of this, we lost a lot of time searching for the nests of birds actively screaming in June and July. They just happened to be fish fillets of the last year of birth, which, of course, did not yet have nests. Their offspring appeared only in the next spring.

According to their autumnal behavior, young individuals of the common owl form pairs at the end of the autumn of the first year of life. In small migratory species of owls, for example, in the spiny and Ussuri scoop, pairing occurs in the first spring of life.

About the readiness to start breeding birds usually inform each other of a kind of behavior - takings. In most cases, at least for active birds during the day, the tokens include various demonstrative movements: birds take bizarre poses and perform unusual, sharp, conspicuous movements. To enhance the visual effect, the males are disguised as bright bridal dresses by the spring. For owls, these metamorphoses are not characteristic. Actions designed to perceive the organs of vision, they have a subordinate value. In the dark, after all, still do not consider the details of the movements and coloring of the plumage. Rumor - this 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, specific current flights, is noted only in those species of owls that are not strictly night birds. Thus, marital flights, during which birds fly in circles over the nesting area - soar, often wings, sometimes loud claps - are characteristic only of marsh, polar, partly hawkish owls and very few other representatives. Marriage can be accompanied by screaming. This is often observed in owl.

Of the effects calculated for visual perception, some owls inherent in the flicker of the throat spot that appears at the moment of screaming. In this case, the feathers on the neck are raised, as if protruding, making their light bases visible. Such a whitish patch on the owl's throat is noticeable even in dense twilight. It oscillates in time with the cry. When you look at a hooting owl or some other screaming owl, the look involuntarily rivets to a shimmering throat.

More often than not, the current of owls is a monotonous repetition of the monotonous deaf sounds of a bird sitting calmly on a tree. And the basis of the marriage song is usually a call-up cry.

Probably, for many species of owls in the period of mating excitement, so-called antiphonal singing is characteristic, when the voice of one bird answers another. In this case, a comparatively long, relatively constant roll-over of the rhythm arises. As a rule, two males take part in it. It is noteworthy that the propensity for antiphonal singing is already evident in the owl chicks. So, the signal for the notification of the whereabouts of the soviat is served very smoothly: one scroll will scream, and immediately, as if in response to his voice, another call of the second chick from another place is heard.

From the tendency of owls to antiphonal singing, in some species a characteristic species wedding song-duet has evolved, which is a regular alternation of conscript calls of the male and female. This is no longer a roll call of two birds, but a stable pair singing, which is perceived as a single signal. You can hear a duet song at the wedding time, for example, with an owl, a long-eared owl, some scoops, but it is especially interesting and complex in construction for a fish eagle owl. Schematically, the duet song of the latter can be represented as follows.

Each of the sounds of this song is reproduced at strictly defined intervals and, as a rule, only in the above sequence. The male begins the song. He owns the first and third sounds of the song. The second and fourth sounds are reproduced by the female. The male has a "hu-guuuu", the female has a thicker sound, rolling and low - "yyy-hyy-gyyyyyy." Almost one bird inserts its crying crying in parts between the sounds issued by the partner. The duration of one song is 7-8 seconds. The song after the song with active tampering usually follows with an interval of 5-10 seconds.

Sometimes the wedding song of owls is not a duet, but a series of sounds, as if a very peculiar trill. For example, 17-18 screams are combined into the wedding song of a male marsh owl. This song lasts about 4-5 seconds. In the bearded Owl, the marriage trill lasts 8-9 seconds. However, during this time there are only 12-13 screams. A comparatively short energetic trill (7-10 gradually weakening cries, reproduced within 2.5-3 seconds) is typical for the moose-nosed owl.

White, or polar owl (Nyctea scandiaca)

Does one of the owls make a single sound at the time of the marriage excitement, does the trill reproduce or a couple of owls sing a duet song, this is done many times and is repeated sometimes hundreds of times in a row.

Since in the Soviet period the formation of pairs and proper pairing often turn out to be significantly separated in time, the general activation of marital behavior is quite long. The biological meaning of spring singing owls is primarily in synchronization of the sexual process, less often it serves to attract a partner to the nesting site. For this purpose, most owls are intended for autumn takings. And, judging by the intensity of the cries, the autumnal current is sometimes not less violent than the springtime. This is most noticeable in the area where the number of owls is low and where to find a partner they have to make a lot of noise.

Spring and autumn singing owls are often regarded as a signal for the employment of the site. We still can not agree with this, although we do not deny the polyfunctional significance of vocal reactions in birds. The fact is that the youngest birds are most actively screaming in the autumn. If, on the other hand, it is recognized that the autumn calls of owls are functionally called upon to protect some territory, in other words, to expel other representatives of the species from the site, then, undoubtedly, the old birds already having their own plot would most of all scream. The voice of the owls is first and foremost a means of intraspecific positive communication in communication, and not at all repelling or threatening.

By the way, the detection and accounting of owls are mostly based on their screams in the mating season. Even in the event that the owl is silent for some reason on one of the nights, it is very easy to provoke it to scream. It is worth simulating or reproducing the tape recording of her song, as the owl will certainly respond. Five or six excursions in the midst of taming are enough to reveal all the owls living on this site. The owls are most active in the windless moonlit nights, from one evening to two o'clock, and before the dawn comes.

Focusing on the voices of owls in the night forest, you can learn not only about the presence of these birds here. This was also written by MA Mensbir, an outstanding Russian ornithologist. 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 it is already possible to determine by it what it does she just flew out of her day shelter, which she lets know with a somewhat timid scream, and then the cry becomes animated - the owl rejoices in the darkness, but then something alarms the bird or a quarrel with the neighbor - and anxiety is expressed in shouts and discontent. "

The voice of the owl is a truly amazing creation of the night forest. The marriage cry is not only intense, but also sufficiently reliably protected from interference. It stands out well among any forest noise. As shown by VD Il'ichev's research, the sound spectrum of the voice of many owls is usually in the range of 400 hertz. Note that sounds, issued, for example, by a zareka and a number of other passerine birds, are much higher - about 5000 hertz. It is interesting that the more nightly the owl leads, the lower its voice. Conversely, for many twilight and partially day-old owls, instead of a deaf "huu", we sometimes hear a very sonorous cry of the type "ke-ke-ke ..." - as if it's not a night owl, but a day-old bird of prey. Marsh, polar, hawkish and some other owls have a more or less high voice.

An inexperienced observer may think that all owls cry almost the same. To some extent this is so. Vocal abilities of owls are limited. However, many of them, along with low sounds, can make a shrill whistle. We heard such a high, slightly rattling whistle, for example, at the Moscow Zoo from the year-old polar owls. The fish fillets whistle high and fervently.

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

Imagine that you are in the wilds of the Ussuri region. Night. Somewhere in the crown of the old elm monotonously repeats its "ut-that-that" Ussurian shovel. Sings measuredly, like a clock ticking. But the second bird screamed nearby as well. And the first, to somehow stand out, immediately changes the tone of the song. It turns out to be a very beautiful roll call. Other owls also have the ability to change the tone of the main song, for example, a needle-footed owl and a spittle.

Quite recently, with the help of a tape recorder, it was possible to detect the geographic variability of the voice of owls. So, on the basis of the tape recording of the marriage song, the white-cloaked scoops ( Otus leucotis) It was established by Wouter Wieden that her subspecies living in Kenya and Tanzania differ well by voice.

The communicative meaning of the owls' voice is very diverse. By means of a special sound signal, usually sharp and high, the boxes inform parents of their whereabouts so that parents can quickly find them and feed them. Soviets leave the nest very early and sometimes fly far away. A special signal is also given by adult birds, for example, in times of danger. Hearing it, the chicks freeze and cease to squeak. Quarreling, the soviat are twisted, expressing their dissatisfaction with this.

In situations that necessitate defense, less often in case of aggression (for example, in family disputes), all owls click their beak. This sound arises, as KA Yudin suggests, at the moment when the superclust rests in the subjugation. Movement is so fast that it is almost not caught by the eye. High-speed filming could help clarify how the click occurs. Some of the owls, for example the bearded Owl, in addition to clicking with their beaks, threatening, hiss.

Thus, in general, the possibility of reproducing sounds in Sovies is quite large, which, in conditions of limited night visibility, acquires special significance.

Literature: Pukinsky Yu. B. Life of Sov. Series: The life of our birds and animals. Issue. 1. L., Izd-vo Leningr. Univ., 1977. 240 p.

Question: which bird cries out at night and does not let you sleep?

These lingering plaintive sounds that the year in a row in July are heard by the inhabitants of the Veniakovo microdistrict. Meet is a long-eared owl. But the screams are issued by the chicks of a long-eared owl. This kind of owl is relatively calm to the neighborhood of a man, although loud sounds, rumbling, music scare the birds. Owls tirelessly hunt all night, and flocks of mouse rodents retreat from our homes. Here, cosiness has a distinct advantage, because this is a wild species that specializes in mice. Urban cats and cats can not catch so many rodents, even if they continuously hunted the 8 hours that they do not sleep. Before diseases, carried mice and lumps, first of all our pets (cats, dogs) are defenseless, in the second place - children, in the third - ourselves. 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 assistance, none of these cases can not be avoided. In cats, most often all develops chlamydia. In the excrement of mice, their urine may contain bacteria that cause tularemia, typhus. Viruses that cause hemorrhagic fever with kidney syndrome in humans and animals multiply in the body of mites that live on rodents. There are many hemorrhagic fevers: Crimean, Omsk, Argentine, Bolivian, Central Asian, yellow fever, Ebola, Lassa, Dange, Marburg disease and others.

Listen to how the owl cries.

Now just imagine that these hordes of rodents will walk through the children's sandboxes, cellars, entrances, paths in the public gardens ...

Let's get back to the owls. Long-eared owls are medium-sized birds: the weight of the female is 300g, the male is 250g. You will distinguish it immediately from the large feathers (up to 5 cm), bright orange in the iris of the eyes, and the presence on every side of the body beneath the longitudinal pies of a thin, streamlined transverse pattern. The top is grayish-brown with a dark marble pattern, the bottom is rust-yellowish. This camouflage coloring helps to merge with the bark of trees during the day when the owl is asleep. In the afternoon he sits, stretched out and pressed himself against the trunk of a tree. Marriage flight - zigzag, from tree to tree; In spring, on the fly, it sometimes loudly flaps its wings. The voice is a deaf "hu-huu" or plaintive "y-y-u". But in non-breeding time the eared owls are silent. If you find it with the child, then 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 work in nature.

Residents of our city, whose windows are out in the field and there are tall trees nearby, are advised by ecologists to find out in winter whether there are crow's nests on these trees and try to eliminate them on their own or with the help of housing and communal services. The tall owls do not build their nests. Usually married couple already in March - April, the abandoned nest of a raven, a thrush, a buzzard or a hollow is put in order. Therefore, if there is no nest, there are no nestling chicks in front of your window. The female incubates eggs as soon as the first egg is laid. The chicks have a strong age difference. The newborn sucker weighs about 20 grams and is covered with white, relatively sparse down, through which pinkish skin shines through. Eyes and ears are closed, and he seems extremely helpless. However, it is worthwhile to touch the chick, as he immediately lifts his head and shakes her in search of food brought. Left alone, the suvenok quickly cools and begins to pee. To warm up at night, the chicks huddle together to a friend. They have a feather, they have a unique structure. more than anybody does not meet birds. In anticipation of parents, the sowat are sitting in a dense heap, heating  each other. The chicks "pyramid" is built not as horrible. Usually in the center there is a senior chick, and his head always rises above the "pile of bodies". To him, with the backs out, the rest of the cubs are hanging. The youngest chicks and eggs are below. According to their long cries, parents determine the location of 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. How to eat, then stop giving a cry (most parents cope with feeding chicks by 2.00 - 2.30 am). Owls get a lunch for themselves and return to the nest. Usually cries are heard for three weeks, and then the first chicks try to try themselves in flight. These flying exploits are dictated not only by their child's restlessness, but by the inherent instinct of self-preservation, If the predator finds a nest, not all will perish.

In hunting, owls are helped by sharp eyesight. The owls' eyes have a telescopic shape (in the form of a cylinder, narrowed in front and enlarged posteriorly). The lens of the owl eye is not located in a flattened eyeball, as in other birds, but in a deep horn tube. Essentially it is a high-speed telephoto lens. The huge pupil uses the smallest amount of light. A long-eared owl notices a mouse on the average in contrasting background with the force of light created by a single stearin candle, removed at 650 meters from the candle. In owls, unlike the day-old animals, the rod in the retina is dominated by sticks that provide twilight vision. Owl's colors are perceived poorly. Eyes can be seen not only in dense twilight, but also in the daytime. For a long time, not blinking, the owl often looks at the bright sky. Observing the behavior of an owl in the afternoon, one can not be surprised how far he sees a passing day-old predator or a crow, even if he looks 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 the owl is suddenly illuminated in the dark or bounced out of the dark hollow in the daytime, it is not immediately able to see well around, as it takes time to adapt its eyes. However, in owls it occurs relatively quickly. Owls are farsighted birds and do not see very well in the immediate vicinity. In this it is easy to make sure that if the scoop (manual course) quickly bring almost even the most eyes to your favorite food, then it does not react to it. However, it is worthwhile to push the food for at least ten centimeters, as the bird immediately notices it and seizes it. The fact that owls do not use eyesight at close ranges can be judged by the following fact. When the owl brings food to the mouth, it always closes its eyes. Bending down, the bird usually touches the victim with the beak and the surrounding bristles, looks for her head and, convinced of the touch that the prey is dead, begins to eat it.

The color of the iris of the owls often affects the observer. It can be bright orange, almost red, as, for example, a long-eared owl, or lemon-yellow, like a marsh owl and owls, or, finally, dark brown, like most owls. With age, the color of the iris usually changes, becoming more and more intense. The nestlings, as a rule, have a rainbow light brown color. The color of the iris is not directly related to vision. With insignificant illumination, when owls usually hunt, the iris is almost not noticeable at all - the whole eye is covered by a dark pupil. The area of ​​the iris increases and shrinks autonomously in each of the eyes. This is not hard to be seen by observing an owl partially illuminated by a sunlight.
  When you look at the owl, you involuntarily pay attention to the unusual nature of the blinking of the eyes. Most birds, blinking, raise the lower eyelid up, while simultaneously covering the eye with a blinking membrane. But the owls act differently, almost like people: they, blinking, lower the upper eyelid down. A rapid flashing (lowering of the eyelids) indicates a disturbance of the bird. Worried owl, before flying away, usually begins to "offended" to blink. However, if the owl is calm and, covering it, 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.

The owls have an amazingly acute hearing. The flattened plumage surrounding the ear holes forms sound-receiving horns that direct the sound waves to the ears - two large vertical slots on the sides of the skull. Sometimes they are "cross-eyed" (or, better to say, "crooked") located one above the other; manipulating the outer ears, owls can change the size of the cracks. All this allows them to accurately calculate the location of the victim, evaluating the tiny time difference that the sound from the rattle mouse is required to reach each of the ears. To hunt in the pitch darkness, some species of owls completely manage with hearing.

In addition to unique hearing and vision, evolution awarded the Sov noiseless flight. The paws and trunks of these birds are covered with thick down feathers, even their feathers and they are rounded at the ends and bend to the body, and the outer webs of the first three feathers are often fringed or saw-tooth serrated to soften the airflow above them. Because of this, owls seem much larger than they really are. The same long-eared owl has a wingspan of 92 cm, but it weighs no more than an orange. Hiding, she draws the feathers, making her look like a fat bough.

Adult owls are skilled hunters not only because nature has awarded them with sharp eyesight, absolute hearing, silent flight, but also because of the tactics of hunting. If this field or meadow - an owl overtakes prey from the summer. The mouse is seen by a bird from a height of 2-4 m or is detected by the sound with an accuracy of 1 cm, the owl is reduced and makes a throw from a height of 1.5 to 3 m. If this is a complex relief with fences, structures, elevations, then owls arrange an ambush - they are on duty on some branch, pillar, fence. In windless, dry nights, hunting is especially successful. In rare cases, they ambush directly 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 - it is partially cleared from the skin. In an impulse of parental care for the feeding of the owl chicks, the territory can fly up to 100 km2. Even such self-sacrifice does not always allow you to feed the whole masonry. Not all rodents are enough in all the years, nests are often ravaged by crows, and in settlements people (and children and adults who shoot birds from pneumatic pistols). In the wild nature of the enemies of the owls a little - the greatest danger for adult birds are the owls and owls, and the nests sometimes ruin the martens. One of the ringed eared owls lived in nature for 29 years and 9 months, but usually their life span is 5-10 years, and in captivity up to 50 years. The number of eared owls in the suburbs is restored with varying success. So, in 2008, environmentalists specially produced eared owls in the nature reserve "Vorobyovy Gory". These feathered predators disappeared from the wildlife preserve in the late 90s of the last century. Noise and exhaust gases of the big city deprived them of comfortable conditions for nesting.

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

Owls are very useful birds. They hunt for mice and other rodents, eating grain and, thus, save us a harvest. One single owl can catch more than a thousand mice per year, saving for us several tons of grain. In addition, owls catch and eat insects - pests of gardens, forests and fields. The useful effect of the activity of owls is intensified by the fact that they hunt at night, when other winged predators sleep.

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

planetasov.ru

wildportal.ru/sova/sova.html

be sure to read it yourself and with the children of our domestic popularizer of nature II. Akimushkina.

Akimushkin I.I. From morning to evening. - Moscow: Children's Literature, 1974. - 160s.