I keep hearing an owl in the day

Tawny owl keeping me awake the past few nights - it’s either on the chimney or the telegraph pole beside my fence. I’m exhausted after a weekend of 4yr old DGS1, so I’m hoping the owl finds somewhere else tonight.

Last summer I watched a young sparrow dithering around on the gutter of the house next door, obviously scared to try to fly.

There is about three feet's distance from that gutter to the flat roof of our front porch, which is directly under the window of this room.

Finally a cock sparrow, presumably the youngster's daddy landed in the gutter, flew across here, flew back, chirped as if to say, "Now you try!" Scared baby bird still dithered, until Daddy shoved her off the gutter, when she flew happily and landed safely on my window ledge, then flew back to daddy practically crowing in triumph.

Ok so I've been hearing it again, very early in the morning etc
but I've now realised what it is
My next door neighbours have a rodent light? that comes on at the front of their house and it makes an owl sound!!! so although we have actual owls, I think what I have been hearing for months its a bloodyy fake owl, rodent deterrent!

NfkDumpling you’re right, yes of course it is, I don’t know why I got mixed up.
I did wonder why when I googled ‘spoonbill’, it didn’t look like what I was after ie ‘shoebill’

It is very likely a Little Owl. They hunt during the day unlike the larger owls .

FannyCornforth

I recently became a little bit obsessed with these fellas after hearing about them on Radio 4’s ‘Tweet of the Day’.
It’s a Ugandan Spoonbill Stork

Looks like a dodo and I thought they were extinct! Reckon that’s what they were,really.

v funny

Maybe it's a teat owl

FannyCornforth

I recently became a little bit obsessed with these fellas after hearing about them on Radio 4’s ‘Tweet of the Day’.
It’s a Ugandan Spoonbill Stork

It's a Shoebill Stork Fanny. We were lucky enough to see them when we went to Uganda on a safari holiday just before lockdown. How lucky we were! They are fantastic birds. Huge! They plodge v e r y s l o w l y around in the swamp in very high grass stuff and stand v e r y s t i l l for a long time. Apparently they can move very fast when a fish swims by!

Where we used to live our garden ran into a belt of woodland and there was a pair of owls living there. They got used to us pottering around and it was one of those wonderful moments when I went out to get wood early one evening to find their three babies had just fledged and were in the trees all around me. They made the most weird noises as they chatted and blundered around. Sadly Mrs Tawny was killed on the road and it was so sad to hear Mr Tawny calling for her night after night. This was twenty or so years ago. Our DS now lives nearby and listens to owls in the woods. I wonder if they're the same family.

@JaneJudge:

I never thought of that!

I would say wood pigeon

We have wood pigeons in our garden, they do sound like owls

My chimney is being swept tomorrow susysue

hollysteers

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

it's ok, I didn't think I was going to meet an imminent death you didn't need to withdraw it!

at crow secondwind...maybe it was young? I don't know much about corvids

Owls definitely shouldn't be heard during the day. I only hear the owls beside me after it is pitch dark. But the wood pigeons start cooing from dawn. I would get chimney checked. I got an awful shock yesterday when I realised a tiny sparrow was fluttering about inside my log burner (thankfully not lit). Poor wee thing. I got a thick towel and opened the bifold kitchen exterior doors, then gradually opened the log burner door slightly, gently grabbed the wee soul in the towel and off it flew out the doors. I was so relieved it wasn't hurt.

How lovely! Owls are such beautiful birds.
Off on a bit of a tangent, but just as it was getting light one day last week, I could hear something ‘croaking’ outside and came to the conclusion it must be a toad. I heard it again later in the week, this time when I was in the garden during the day. This time, the croaking noise, eventually morphed into a sort of quack. I followed the source of the noise and realised that it was coming from a crow on a nearby chimney top. I’ve never heard a crow make a noise like this before and assume that the poor thing has got some sort of voice problem. However will it attract a mate?!

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Young owls may well be heard and seen in daytime, especially at this time of the year.

Glad you have the sweep coming in. It could well be a young bird that has fallen down the chimney and can't get back out.

A small russet coloured owl (Tawny maybe?) landed on our greenhouse roof last Thursday, just after lunch. It stayed for several minutes just looking around. I crept indoors to get the camera but it was gone by the time I got back. Lovely to see it so close though. We've got night vision cameras in the garden but we stopped using them because the batteries don't last long, but they used to reveal barn owls, badgers, foxes, hares and even small deer visiting the garden at night. Perhaps I'll get some fresh batteries.

It is quite normal to hear owls in the day. If you go into Google it will tell you the owls that are active in daytime.

Could be, have seen barn owls hunting in the day where l live.

Fanny

Jane apparently Ugandan spoonbills are so ungainly and clumsy, they just sort of fall on top of their prey!
They even eat baby crocodiles ?

I’ve got a photo of DH meeting a Chinese crested stork. DH isn’t a tall man, so the bird was as tall as him. They were eyeball to eyeball. He didn’t look too confident (DH).

It's a not very good spy signalling to his cronies.

(Not very good because of picking a night bird in daytime)