The tawny owl sometimes breeds, like the barn-owl, in ruins, outhouses, disused chimneys, and such places; but the usual site is a hollow tree, all the more liked if it is overgrown with ivy. Sometimes he takes possession of a deserted nest of a magpie or crow to breed in. The three or four eggs laid are white, and nearly round in shape.
The tawny owl is strictly nocturnal in habits, and preys on mice, rats, moles, young rabbits, squirrels, and birds; and he also, like most owls, occasionally takes fish.
Besides the species described, no fewer than seven others have been included in books on British birds, and if these seven were not rare accidental visitors to our island we should indeed be rich in owls. It will be sufficient to give their names:—
- Snowy owl (Nyctea scandiaca).
- European hawk-owl (Surnia ulula).
- American hawk-owl (Surnia funeria).
- Tengmalm’s owl (Nyctala tengmalmi).
- Scops owl (Scops giu).
- Eagle owl (Bubo ignavus).
- Little owl (Athene noctua).
It is possible that the last species may one day come to be ranked as a British bird, like the pheasant and red-legged partridge, as several attempts have been made to introduce it into this country, first by Waterton, in 1843; and, in recent years, by Mr. W. H. St. Quintin in Yorkshire, and Mr. Meade-Waldo in Hampshire.
Hen Harrier.
Circus cyaneus.
Upper parts of adult male bluish grey; lower parts white; beak black; irides reddish brown; legs and feet yellow; claws black. Female: upper parts reddish brown; under parts pale reddish yellow, with deep orange-brown, longitudinal streaks and spots. Length: male, eighteen inches; female, twenty inches.
This very handsome and graceful hawk was fairly common within recent times in the British Islands. But the incessant persecution of all birds of prey by game-preservers is having its effect. It is plain to see that as British species they are being extirpated; and the first to vanish are the harriers, owing to their fatal habit of breeding in the open country on the ground. For while most birds have a close time allowed them, the hawks are sought out and destroyed, old and young, during the breeding season. Thus the marsh-harrier, which should have come first in this place, is now extinct in this country, and cannot be introduced into a work on British birds which does not include the great auk, the bustard, the spoonbill, and many other species which have been exterminated in England. The hen harrier is at the present time very nearly in the same case; it is only included here because a few pairs probably still breed on the wildest and most extensive moors in Wales, the north of England, and the Highlands of Scotland.