Hmm, yes, I've heard a male mimicking his mate when around the nest too, but it's unconvincing and nothing like a full-blooded female kewick! I have Mikkola too, which to my mind illustrates the near-impossibility of representing tawny calls in print. Have to say I don't always trust what he says as my impression is he's throwing in everything that's ever been written by an "expert" without having heard some of the calls himself. E.g I simply don't believe in duetting -- mates call to each other for various reasons but they don't duet in any real sense of the word. Tu-whit tu-woo -- which he doesn't specifically mention but gives credence to by mentioning duetting -- is a nonsense, but so embedded in our folklore that, well, it just won't go away.
Another statement that raises doubts is "When the female gives this call [kewick] from the nest the male generally responds soon afterwards by bringing prey . . ". Having spent many, many nights under nests and nestboxes with good mics I think I can say that what actually happens is that the female hears the male announce that he's setting off for the nest with a catch (with a far off hoot that may be completely inaudible to the casual listener) and the female replies -- he is not "responding" to some demand for food. One female I know did one year call on spec from the nest, but the male came in only when he'd caught something, which sometimes took a very, very long time, like 2 hours. The next year she only responded to his first distant call announcing a flight in.
"oo-trill" of the male and "ee-trill" of the female? Blow me down! It's certainly a mysterious call and I'm not always sure why it's being used or what it means, but one thing I am fairly sure of is that if it's made by a male when another male hoots just over the fence, so to speak, the first male is signalling that yes, he's there, sitting in his patch, but he's definitely not coming out to fight! All Mikkola says is that it's "a territorial conflict call", which is ok except that one male is signalling that he doesn't want to scrap. He doesn't mention the alarm aspect of the trill call either. Made by a male "immediately after delivering prey"? I've not heard that, unless the female leaves the nest and has a good time winding him up!
There's no mention of the incredible wailing that may be done between a pair and which has nothing to do with the "caterwauling" that happens when males attack each other or see a floater off. Or the use of "wick-wick-wick" by a female to call in a companion, male or female, who she's lost contact with.
No mention either of the possibility that the main reason tawnies don't call in summer is because they're moulting and feeling low, like many moulting birds. Also, re the rarity of calling during the day, we have a male who does it regularly!
This sort of thing undermines my confidence in Mikkola's descriptions, some of which I can't relate to anything I've heard anyway. So I'll believe in a male kewick when I hear one! I don't count the pale imitations at nesting time -- they're just that, not a real call. Whereas the female hoot is real -- but how many know this call? Again, I don't understand Mikkola's description. The call is clearly phrased, just as well as the male's -- the point is it's not clearly audible over the same distances. Of course it makes me wonder if he's heard one properly. Apart from the "voice", it's different from the male's in having two to three short "hu"s between the first and last longer hoots, not just one. And you can hear it any time of the year -- it may be heard "especially in autumn" simply because late Aug is when a female fledgling hatched mid-April makes her first hoot. The first kewick seems to happen about 3 weeks later. He doesn't mention that the female hoot's distinguishing characteristic is that it's made by young ladies who have not yet found a mate. At least that's my experience based on three females whose life histories I know well.
To be fair to Mikkola, it seems to me that tawny calls are a tricky area as you can rarely see the calling bird or birds, so it's difficult or impossible to know what is going on, and of course it's easy to misattribute calls -- wrong bird, wrong sex, wrong activity or reaction. I do most of my listening and recording with individuals I know quite well (in a manner of speaking!), so I feel familiar with their behaviour and usually know who is talking to who, and even sometimes why! It's a dreadful thing to say, but I have the feeling that Mikkola doesn't know his tawnies as well as he might and was largely leafing through books and academic papers when he wrote that account on pages 140-42.
Do tell why you've been buzzed! Any contact -- did you get scratched? I've been soundly bopped on the back of the neck, but by a "friendly" female who didn't kick on contact.
My apologies for going on at such length, but I find tawny calls fascinating and feel they have not yet been done justice.
