Wednesday 5 December 2007

Roosting Indian Scops Owls in my home garden

Indian Scops Owl in Feb 2006
While birding in my home garden (on 5 Sep, 2007), I peeped into a dense coffee bush in the corner of my garden hoping for a pair of Brown Hawk Owls, which used this tree occasionally for roosting. No luck with them, but I rather serendipitously, I stumbled a pair of Indian Scops Owls. They were huddled together, looking at opposite directions, and were of two colour morphs: grey and brown.

Beucase of my proximity at the time of this encounter, they went into 'alert-mode' with their body slimming considerably, and ear tufts erected well—trying to disguise themselves as a couple of broken branches. I retreated and found a different angle to scope it for my mom, who takes interest in such thingamajigs, and to take a record digiscoping shot. In Feb 2006, I had a day roost of this owl in a dead coconut tree at my place. This tree fell down after decaying and the owls weren’t seen thereafter. So I was very happy to find them again like this.

Indian Scops Owls roosting in my garden

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