Asian Barred Owlet
Asian Barred Owlet
Photo by Sumanta Basak
I love the little shark tooth pattern near the wing tips!
This little cutie is also known as the Cuckoo Owlet. It lives throughout Southeast Asia through Pakistan. It is small for an owl, but large for a pygmy owl at 9 inches / 24 cm. It mainly eats insects, but like other owls it isn't too picky about food.
The patterning on this guy is so consistent. So many of the other birds have much more random camouflage. What kind of environment is this one living in? I wonder what drives the development of this particular pattern.
There doesn't look to be too much unique about where it lives. It lives mostly in pine forest, but also oak and other deciduous, as well as evergreen jungle. It prefers secondary forest, which is forest that has had some human development in it, which does not seem unusual for the smaller owls in particular. The smaller regrown trees and cut down areas from human interference clears out better flight paths for them to hunt.
This is also one of the pygmy owls lacking the "false eyes" on the back of the head.
Pakistan pine forest (Miranjani)
Thailand pine forest (Phurua National Park)
China rhododendron forest (Yumthang Valley)
Looking at a list of commonly spotted Thai nocturnal birds doesn't seem to make any one trend seem to stand out, there's quite the variety in here.
Really interesting!