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Tawny-bellied Screech Owl | Megascops watsonii
Donkerbruine schreeuwuil | Autillo ventrileonado | Corujinha-orelhuda
The Tawny-bellied Screech Owl is the screech owl of the Amazonian forest interior: a dark, warm brown species with long ear tufts. It is mainly detected by its long series of low hoots. In the south of the guide area lives the form usta, sometimes treated as a separate species.
Voice
A long, rhythmic series of low, soft notes, hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo…, often lasting more than ten seconds and rising and falling in volume. Sings at dusk and at night, often throughout the year.
Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
20–23 cm, with long ear tufts and yellow to orange-brown eyes. The face is dark brown, with a narrow, low-contrast rim to the facial disc. The upperparts are dark blackish brown with fine vermiculation and a row of pale spots on the scapulars. The underparts are tawny to ochre, with dark shaft streaks and fine cross-bars. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Tropical Screech Owl Megascops choliba is paler and greyer, with whitish underparts and a clear black rim to the facial disc; it lives in semi-open country, at forest edges and around settlements, and sings a short trill with a few separate final notes. Foothill Screech Owl Megascops roraimae lives higher in the foothills, is paler, with shorter ear tufts, and sings a trill. Crested Owl Lophostrix cristata is much larger, with long white ear tufts.
Habitat
Humid terra firme and várzea forest, also older secondary forest, in the lowlands up to about 1000 m. It lives in the lower and middle strata of the forest, hidden in dense vegetation by day. It feeds mainly on large insects and other invertebrates, sometimes small vertebrates. It nests in a tree cavity.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia in Amazonia east of the Andes. In Ecuador in the eastern lowlands. In Peru throughout the Amazonian lowlands. In Bolivia in the lowlands of the north and east. Absent from the Pacific side and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in southern Venezuela, the Guianas and Brazilian Amazonia.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
After dark, listen for the long series of hoots along trails in tall forest around lodges in the Amazonian lowlands of Ecuador and Peru. Birds usually perch low to mid-level in dense vegetation.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The range is large, but deforestation in Amazonia reduces its habitat locally.
Scientific name
Megascops watsonii | (Cassin, 1849)
Cassin described the species in 1849 as Ephialtes Watsonii; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Megascops was introduced in 1848 by Kaup. The genus name comes from Greek megas, 'great', and skōps, a small owl (scops owl). The species name honours Gavin Watson (1796–1858), an American physician and zoologist. The specimen the first description was based on came from Orinoco, Venezuela.