Tawny owls had grown quieter for some time (perhaps they did not wish to compete with the most intense nightingale singing bout).
However, over the last nights I have been hearing them more often, and tonight I heard what I believe was a conversation between a tawny owlet and its parent.
It was difficult to determine whether it was truly an owlet or the female but my guess is that it was owlet.
It was not the typical begging call which is perhaps more ‘chickly’ in its character.
The vocalization sounded somewhere between the female’s ‘too-wit’ and the chick’s begging call.
I wonder if my predictions are being confirmed, namely, that parents would communicate with the chicks more often from outside the nest to entice them to crawl up to entrance and to, eventually, fledge (see also Tawny owl observations (beginning of April) – vocalizations near nest).
If I was correct in my assumptions that hatching occurred in the beginning of April and tawny owl chicks tend to fledge at around 5 weeks old (but they might leave the nest earlier than that to pursue the ‘branching phase’ when the owlets do not fly off from the nest but they leap from a branch to a branch in the vicinity of the nest), then currently these chicks would be near their branching phase or they might have already left the nest for branches.
My theory was that the adults use vocalizations in order to entice curiosity in chicks to join the outside world, first, while the chicks are still in the egg and then – as the time to leave the nest approaches.
Tonight (May 9) I overheard a conversation (formerly I had simply heard hooting more often but it was partly due to location – I cannot approach one of the nesting areas while the other is rather close to the trails) which was not begun by a begging chick but by a hooting adult (father?).
Hooting has been rather frequent over these past 3 or 4 nights and tonight hoots and ‘squeals’ were exchanged.
It did not appear that the hooting owl was in the immediate proximity of the chick (there could have been some 5 – 10 metre distance between them).
Accordingly, it was probably not a feeding context (although it could have happened after a meal).
My theory is still that the parents would initiate more frequent communication with the chicks from the general territory in order for the chicks to listen in and to develop an interest in the world outside of the nest / world further from the nest area.
There were about 4 hoots answered by the same number of ‘squealy bouts’.
At no time the distance between the vocalizing individuals changed considerably and, accordingly, I do not suspect any function to this conversation other than encouraging the chicks to voice themselves into the wide world and to pay attention to its sounds as well as to wonder where the parents fly off to when they are not ‘at home’.
Notes by Ieva 