Help! Need a substitute for “brown owl wing” feathers! Haven’t a clue what might work, as I’ve never seen brown owl wings up close and personal!
Betty,
I did a quick search and found this page with a very short description and possible substitute. Submitted by Donald Nicholson, of all people. Just scroll to the description for brown owl.
http://www.flymph.com/html/hooks_and_hackles.html
Hope it helps
Tim
Hi Betty,
I’ve not seen them either. From Donald’s description on the provided link (reddish brown) woodcock came to my mind, but I don’t think owl would be as mottled. Perhaps a saddle from a Rhode Island Red hen?
- Jeff
Betty,
It is not the coloration match which makes finding a substitute for owl so difficult, it is locating feathers with the same very soft and long barbules which allow an own to fly silently.
Sorry, have no close-match substitute to suggest.
Cheers,
Hans W
Aha!! Someone mentioned my name in surprise [lol]
The info was taken from my web-site. I don’t mind as it
was hardly mine in the first place.
It is a free of copyright zone.
Skues
**Owl, Brown (Tawny Owl, Wood Owl). - The small mottled brown hackles on the upper edged of this bird?s wing are used in some north country patterns. The blue for from the base of the plumage is also recommended by one writer for the dubbing of bodies. The larger wing feathers are used for winging large moths or night flies.
Roger Fogg
Brown Owl: Now very difficult to obtain but once commonly employed and very useful. Any reddish-brown marginal covert feathers may be substituted and I recommend French Partridge hackles colored with a Pantone pen.
Fogg’s suggestion of French partridge wings is a very good one as they are very cheap over here, a very good
alternative to dyed hen. For tying a few flies, you don’t need a whole dyed hen neck.
At 2BPounds a pair from Cookshill a real bargain.
http://www.cookshill-flytying.co.uk/wings.htm
Here is a picture of French partridge wings.
WOW! Fantastic information! And the Cookshill site is wonderful! Need to get out my LB to $ conversion chart out and place an order!! Thank you all!!
Having had an opportunity to compare; I would choose a feather from a bobwhite quail. The color is close and the wings are readily available. Bill
Hi,
Another suggestion would be feathers from a cock Golden Pheasant’s wings. There are some nice mottled brown feathers on that which I’ve used for soft hackles. On the trip where I first tried spiders, just such a pheasant and orange landed me my largest for the trip. It weighed in at about 2.25 lbs; not huge by any means, but a lot of fun!
- Jeff
Well, darn!! I have bobwhite quail in my tying arsenal … does that mean I have to put off the order to Cookshill??
But Betty, if you cancel your order how can you do the comparison between partridge and quail? Think of the science and all the research you’ll have to do! 
- Jeff
Woo hoo! Good point!
And one can never have too many feathers about!!
Hi,
I was in the University of Manchester’s museum the other day with my daughter while waiting for Vanessa to finish a meeting. There was a section on birds, one of which was a Tawny Owl. I had a look, then tried to find a Brown Owl to get an idea of what the feathers look like. Didn’t find one. I see in Donald’s post that he lists Tawny Owl along side Brown Owl, so I assume that indicates the two are similar enough as to be no difference.
I wish I had paid more attention now, and if I get a chance to go back I will. However, what I do recall is that the colouration is reddish brown and white. Pheasant and woodcock are mottled reddish brown and black. I know I have some cheap brown capes where the feathers turn white near the base (where the long soft fibres are) and so these might be a closer match. A “red variant” (think grizzle, but the markings are red/brown rather than black) might work ok too.
These, of course, are just suggestions for the colour matching and don’t get around the issue of fibre quality that Hans mentioned.
- Jeff
Are we definatly talking ‘Brown owl’? Or do we mean ‘Barn Owl’?
A tawny owl is a brown mottled bird but a barn owl is much paler almost white.
Hey, Mick!
Many of the flies Pritt ties (The North-Country Flies) use “the darkest part of a Brown Owl’s wing”, or “hackled with a feather from a Brown Owl’s wing”.
Betty
Hi Mick,
Definately Brown Owl from Pritt’s flies. The Tawny Owl I saw in the museum was quite white in the chest, and the wings were darker. I didn’t get a chance to pull the feathers back and get a good look as it was behind glass and the museum curators were starting to get concerned! Anyway, with the amount of white on the bird, I would suspect that the wing feathers would also have white, especially near the base, so even the darkest feathers may be more “dark red/brown with white flecks/motteling” rather than the dark red/brown and black of woodcock and/or golden pheasant wings. However, as I say, I didn’t examine it all that closely (because I didn’t realise the Tawny and Brown Owl are similar/identical in look).
Curiously, I’m reading “Once a flyfisher”, which is the fishing diary of Laurence Catlow from the UK. It appears this cronicles his 1999 season, and he mentions catching a few fish on a “Brown Owl”, which is Pritt’s 5th listed pattern, described as such:
Brown Owl
Hook 1 (which would be a 14)
Wings: hackled with the reddish feather from the outside of a brown owl’s wing
Body : orange silk
head: peacock herl
I’ve tied similar using woodcock, but that becomes Pritt’s 3rd pattern (winter brown).
- Jeff
It appears that there is a brown sub species of tawny owl.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawny_Owl
This article gives brown owl as a synonym of tawny owl.
http://www.birdcheck.co.uk/main/previewpages/previewpage345.htm
More pictures:
[u]http://www.stevenround-birdphotography.com/Tawny%20Owl.htm
[/u] Bill