Eastern barn owl
| Eastern barn owl | |
|---|---|
 |
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| eastern barn owl Tyto javanica from Australia | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Strigiformes |
| Family: | Tytonidae |
| Genus: | Tyto |
| Species: | T. javanica |
| Binomial name | |
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Tyto javanica (JF Gmelin, 1788) |
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| Subspecies | |
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Many, see text |
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| Synonyms | |
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Tyto delicatula Gould, 1837 |
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Many, see text
Tyto delicatula Gould, 1837
The eastern barn owl (Tyto javanica) is usually considered a subspecies group and together with the American barn owl group, the western barn owl group, and sometimes the Andaman masked owl make up the barn owl. The cosmopolitan barn owl is recognized by most taxonomic authorities. A few (including the International Ornithologists' Union) separate them into distinct species, as is done here. The eastern barn owl is native to southeast Asia and Australasia.
Iis nocturnal over most of its range, but in some Pacific islands, it also hunts by day. They specialise in hunting animals on the ground and nearly all of their food consists of small mammals which they locate by sound, their hearing being very acute. They mate for life unless one of the pair gets killed, when a new pair bond may be formed. Breeding takes place at varying times of year according to locality, with a clutch, averaging about four eggs, being laid in a nest in a hollow tree, old building or fissure in a cliff. The female does all the incubation, and she and the young chicks are reliant on the male for food. When large numbers of small prey are readily available, barn owl populations can expand rapidly.
König proposed that Tyto alba delicatula should be split off as a separate species, to be known as the eastern barn owl, which would include the subspecies T. d. sumbaensis, T. d. meeki, T. d. crassirostris and T. d. interposita.
The eastern barn owl occurs on the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Australia, and many Pacific Islands. In general it is considered to be sedentary, and indeed many individuals, having taken up residence in a particular location, remain there even when better foraging areas nearby become vacant.
In Australia there is some migration as the birds move towards the northern coast in the dry season and southward in the wet, and also nomadic movements in association with rodent plagues. Occasionally, some of these birds turn up on Norfolk Island, Lord Howe Island or New Zealand, showing that crossing the ocean is not beyond their capabilities. In 2008, eastern barn owls were recorded for the first time breeding in New Zealand.
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Wikipedia