Tawny Owl

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Tawny Owls are symbols of intelligence and wisdom. They fly silently in the night, and are often careful and quiet, speaking only when they have something interesting or useful to say. Being natural inventors, Tawny Owls love to learn new skills and try out new things. They enjoy solving problems and using their imagination.

Tawny Owls pay attention to detail and are great at analysing and approaching things in a logical and quirky way. They can enjoy competitive games and prefer to do things their way. They are inclined to question authority and challenge the adults around them. They enjoy testing theories and ideas as independent, quiet, and flexible deep thinkers. They can be very self-critical so be careful when providing them with feedback.

Natural roles for Tawny Owls

Architect

Inventor

Professor

Characteristics

Tawny Owls thrive when they can observe, analyse, absorb, and practice with minimal supervision. They like to perfect skills and apply their active imaginations to become specialists.

If struggling they can quickly disengage, especially with topics or teaching methods they find dull. They get back on track with time and space for independent work. They also need to be encouraged to conduct thorough research and apply effort to all topics, not just those in which they already have an interest. Specific praise works as a motivator, but generic undeserved praise will usually annoy the Tawny Owl.

Strengths

Improvements

In a team a Tawny Owl will:

Be a keen analytical listener, able to remember ideas offered by others.

Think creative and new ideas and think about the whole project or task ahead.

Welcome ideas from others that improve your group’s chances of success.

Be flexible and willing to adapt and change plans if the situation requires it.

Things for Tawny Owls work on:

Make sure you do contribute and speak up, especially in larger groups.

Explain your most imaginative ideas clearly in practical steps so others can understand what you mean.

Don’t be bossy, others can be more sensitive to criticism than you. Remember to criticise the idea not the person.

Don’t rely on always ‘winging’ or ‘blagging’ it. A plan can be a useful guide for the whole team.

Advice for Tawny Owls

We asked older Tawny Owls what advice they’d send back to their teenage self to make sure they were happy and successful. This is what they said:

To speak with kindness and connect with people.
To enjoy the real world as much as the ideas inside your head.
To hide your irritation at things or people you see as stupid or illogical.

Do you think their advice can help you?

Job and course ideas

As a natural inventor, the Tawny Owl is drawn to courses and jobs where they can apply imagination, usually to solve technical rather than people problems. They enjoy becoming real experts in their chosen career and can thrive in many areas including engineering, electronics, manufacturing, design, science, surveying, photography, and computing.

Many new and emerging careers can suit the Owl’s interest in shaping the future, so why not consider courses covering:

Ethical Hacking
Cyber Security
Virtual and Augmented Reality
Artificial Intelligence.

Create a list of your top ten job ideas. You can update it when you have new ideas.

Here are some suggestions to get you started:

Robotics Engineer
Palaeontologist
Web Designer
Cyber Intelligence Officer
Climate Scientist
Forensic Collision Investigator
Architect
Vlogger
Systems Analyst

You're a Tawny Owl!

Deep

Ingenious

Analytical