Brown boobook

File:Brown Hawk-Owl in Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary March 2025 by Tisha Mukherjee.mpg

Brown boobook (Ninox scutulata) in Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary, Odisha, India.

The brown boobook (Ninox scutulata), also known as the brown hawk-owl, is an owl which is a resident breeder in south Asia from India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal east to western Indonesia and south China.

This species is a part of the larger grouping of owls known as typical owls, Strigidae, which contains most species of owl. The other grouping is the barn owls, Tytonidae.

Taxonomy

The brown boobook was formally described in 1822 by Stamford Raffles from a specimen collected in Sumatra under the binomial name Strix scutulata.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The specific epithet is from Latin scutulatus meaning "diamond-shaped".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The brown boobook is now placed with the other boobooks in the genus Ninox that was introduced by the English naturalist Brian Houghton Hodgson in 1837.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=ioc>Template:Cite web</ref>

Description

File:Brown Hawk-Owl - Ninox scutulata.jpg

N. s. burmanica at Phuket, Thailand,

File:Call of Brown hawk-owl (Ninox scutulata) from South Bengal.wav

a call from South Bengal, India

The brown boobook is a medium-sized owl with a length of Template:Cvt. It has a hawk-like shape due to its long tail and lack of a distinct facial disk. The upperparts are dark brown, with a barred tail. The underparts are whitish with reddish-brown streaking, although the subspecies found in the Andaman Islands has dark brown underparts. The eyes are large and yellow. Sexes are similar.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

This species is very nocturnal but it can often be located by the small birds that mob it while it is roosting in a tree. It feeds mainly on large insects, frogs, lizards, small birds, and mice. The call is a repeated low soft, musical oo-uk ...ooo-uk... which may be heard at dusk and dawn. This owl is quite common in towns and cities like Colombo, Sri Lanka, as well as suburban areas close to buildings.

Nine subspecies are recognised:<ref name=ioc/>

• N. s. lugubris (Tickell, 1833) — north, northeast, central India and Nepal
• N. s. burmanica Hume, 1876 — northeast India to south China, Indochina and Thailand
• N. s. hirsuta (Temminck, 1824) — south India and Sri Lanka
• N. s. isolata Baker, ECS, 1926 — Car Nicobar
• N. s. rexpimenti Abdulali, 1979 — Great Nicobar Island
• N. s. scutulata (Raffles, 1822) — Malay Peninsula, Riau Archipelago, Sumatra and Bangka Island
• N. s. javanensis Stresemann, 1928 — west Java
• N. s. borneensis (Bonaparte, 1850) — Borneo and north Natuna Islands
• N. s. palawanensis Ripley & Rabor, 1962 — Palawan (west Philippines)

Distribution and habitat

The brown boobook is a resident breeder in most of tropical south Asia from the Middle East to south China. Its habitat is well-wooded country and forest. It lays three to five eggs in a tree hole.

There are two records of the brown boobook in the western hemisphere: an individual photographed on St. Paul Island, Alaska, on August 27, 2007,<ref>https://www.owling.com/brown-hawk-owl/ Brown Hawk Owl: A Reference for North and Central American Owls</ref> and a dead owl found on Kiska Island in 2008.<ref>Bond, Alexander & Jones, I.L. (2010). A brown hawk-owl (Ninox scutulata) from Kiska Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska. 41. 107-110.</ref>

Gallery

• Eggs, Collection Museum Wiesbaden
  Eggs, Collection Museum Wiesbaden
• Brown boobook at Samsing in Darjeeling district of West Bengal, India.
  Brown boobook at Samsing in Darjeeling district of West Bengal, India.
• Brown boobooks couple
  Brown boobook couple, Thattekad Bird Sanctuary, Kerala, India

Further reading

• Template:Cite book

External links

• Photos, audio and video of brown hawk-owl from Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Macaulay Library