Tawny fish owl
| Tawny fish owl | |
|---|---|
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Strigiformes |
| Family: | Strigidae |
| Genus: | Bubo (but see text) |
| Species: | B. flavipes |
| Binomial name | |
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Bubo flavipes (Hodgson, 1836) |
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| Synonyms | |
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Cultrunguis flavipes Hodgson, 1836 |
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Cultrunguis flavipes Hodgson, 1836
The tawny fish owl (Bubo flavipes) is a species of owl. It used to be placed in Ketupa with the other fish owls, but that group is tentatively included with the eagle-owls in Bubo, until the affiliations of the fish owls and fishing owls can be resolved more precisely. It is clear from several shared characteristics that the more typical Bubo and fish owls are indeed related, including the structure of the talons, prominent ear tufts and plumage characteristics, unlike the superficially dissimilar fishing owls of Africa.
This typical owl is found in subtropical to temperate forests in Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Taiwan, and Vietnam. They inhabit the Himalayan foothills from Kashmir and Garhwal east to the mountains of Laos and Vietnam and in southern China up to Chekiang and Anhwei. They require forest tracts and duars bearing mountain streams. In areas such as Darjeeling and Nepal, they commonly live at elevations of 1,500 to 2,450 m (4,920 to 8,040 ft). It more less replaces the buffy fish owl (Bubo ketupu) in range and at one time they were considered to be of the same species. The tawny fish owl may overlap in range with brown fish owls (B. zeylonensis) in Laos and Vietnam, the brown usually but not always inhabiting lowland areas and preferring slow or stagnant waters unlike the tawny which prefers faster flowing waters. Unlike the brown and buffy fish owls, they are found only in remote wilderness with little to no disturbance. Those other two fish owls (but not the Blakiston's species) can adapt to living and hunting near human habitations or human-altered areas, such as canals, paddy fields, reservoirs, ornamental ponds and villages, which provides them a boon of ornamental and commercial fishes.
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Wikipedia