Indian Eagle Owl

Latin Name:

Bubo b.bengalensis

Size:

56cm

Description:

Sexes alike. Brown plumage, mottled and streaked dark and has light; prominent ear tufts; orange eyes; legs fully feathered. The Brown Fish Owl Ketupa
zeylonensis (56cm) is darker and has a white throat-patch and naked legs. Solitary or pairs; mostly nocturnal; spends day in leafy branch, rock ledge or an old well; flies slowly but considerable distances when disturbed; emerges to feed around sunset, advertising its arrival with its characteristic call.

Habitat:

ravines, cliffsides, riversides, scrub, open country.

Food:

rodents; also reptiles, frogs and mediumsized birds.

Distribution:

throughout area, up to about 1,500m in the Himalaya.

This huge owl, often considered a subspecies of the more northern Eurasian Eagle Owl Bubo bubo. It is a very local breeding resident. It inhabits rocky scrub, large trees and ruins. On ancient monuments it will perch quite high but elsewhere it often roosts, and usually nests, on the ground. It breeds in mid-winter, like most owls.

Being mainly nocturnal or crepuscular, it may be overlooked as the sites it favours are not always safe to wander around at such times. However it is a large bird, subject to mobbing by crows and readily flushed so it is probably now genuinely very local. Its close relative the Dusky Eagle Owl (which is more closely associated with large trees in wetlands) has declined even more dramatically.