page_title: Tawny owl
section_title: Status
hierarchical_section_title: Tawny owl / Status
caption_attribution_description: English: Closeup of a tawny owl sitting in alcove in the Rosenthal Protestant church cemetery chapel, Berlin This is a picture of the Berliner Kulturdenkmal (cultural monument) with the ID 09030645
context_page_description: The tawny owl or brown owl is a stocky, medium-sized owl commonly found in woodlands across much of the Palearctic. The tawny owl is a member of the genus Strix, that is also the origin of the family's name under Linnaean taxonomy. Its underparts are pale with dark streaks, and the upperparts are either rufous, brown or grey. Several of the eight recognised subspecies have each of the main colour variations. This nocturnal bird of prey hunts a wide variety of prey species, but usually primarily takes small mammals such as rodents. Tawny owls usually hunt by dropping from a perch to seize their prey, which they typically swallow whole. In more urban areas, its diet includes a higher proportion of birds, while in arid subtropics many invertebrates such as insects are taken. Other important prey can include frogs with other vertebrate prey taken fairly rarely. Vision and well-developed hearing adaptations combined with silent flight aid its night hunting. The tawny owl is capable of catching smaller owls, but is itself vulnerable to larger raptors, like eagle-owls or goshawks.
context_section_description: The tawny owl is a common bird, especially in central Europe. A mid-1990s estimate of the European population was 400,000-800,000 pairs. The tawny owl has a geographical range of at least 10 million km² (3.8 million mi²) and a large population including an estimated 970,000–2,000,000 individuals in Europe alone with more extensive surveys two decades later. Population trends have not been quantified, but there is evidence of an overall increase. This owl is not believed to meet the IUCN Red List criterion of declining more than 30% in ten years or three generations and is therefore evaluated as being of least concern. Globally, the population may be estimated anywhere from 1 million to nearly 3 million individuals. 50% of European numbers were in the nations of Germany, France, Poland, Italy and Russia. In the UK it is on the RSPB Amber List of Concern. In Great Britain, estimated number there in the 1970s ran up to 100,000 pairs whereas more recent estimate suggest much fewer, at about 20,000 pairs. Although estimates are variable, close study has shown a population reduction of fairly nebulous cause in Britain of around 11% from 1968-1972 to 1988-1991 or of an estimated 6% from 1970 to 2010, utilizing two different surveying methods. Relative to the loss of other British woodland birds, which has been pronounced, the tawny owl reductions may be considered small to moderate. Among myriad and complex causes for all forest birds in Britain, for the tawny owl it is mentioned that competition for nest sites with introduced eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) may be responsible for some of the reductions. The French population of tawny owls is very large and increased in estimated numbers from 10,000-100,000 in the early 1970s to 50,000-150,000 estimated in the 1990s. 5 digit numbers are estimated in many European countries, including Germany, Italy, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Greece, Croatia, European Russia and Belarus. It is thought that declines may have occurred in Finland, Estonia, Albania and even Italy. The estimated number of breeding pairs within Denmark using different calculation methods was very variable with different estimates from 4800 to 7400 to 20,500. A large number were estimated in Turkey, perhaps up to an estimated 25,000 pairs, with Syria estimated up to 50 pairs and 250 pairs roughly in Israel. While tawny owls may commonly use nest boxes, these are not considered necessary given the general stability of the population. Increased populations pose a risk to smaller owls in areas of sympatry and may hamper conservation efforts of such species.
  Besides natural causes such as predation and starvation, collision with vehicles, power lines, any other kind of wire collision and other manmade objects is a regular cause of tawny owl mortality. Occasionally, the species is exposed to assorted forms of human persecution (from egg-collecting to shootings and poisonings) but it is not nearly as extensively persecuted as larger birds like golden eagles, goshawks and eagle owls. However, earlier in the 20th century, as many as 12% of birds recovered in Scandivania were dead from various forms of persecution. Although they are fairly adaptable to urbanization, there are limits to the tawny owls adaptability, especially due to declines in woodland quality, prey access and human-sourced mortality sources, one of the worst of which is collision with vehicles. Of 112 tawny owls re-released in the wild from England's East Winch Wildlife Centre, 17% were subsequently recovered (about half of which were dead), with the most diagnosed cause of mishap being road accidents. Of 57 tawny owls released in Somerset and Hampshire, 28% were recovered dead. However, tawny owls, perhaps due to their liking of wooded rather open areas, are relatively less vulnerable to automobile deaths than some other owls, i.e. of hundreds dead owls on roadsides in Italy, only 4.5% were tawnys, while 41% were little owls and 39% barn owls, while in Germany, 7.4% were tawnys, against 53% barn owls and 28.4% little owls. Variable levels o
caption: A tawny owl makes use of a steeple as a roost in Berlin.
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