Balsas Screech Owl

Facts about Balsas Screech Owl. Balsas Screech Owl is a genus of owl that comes from the Megascops genus of the Strigidae family. "Scientific name of the owl is Megascops seductus". Balsas Screech Owl is prevalent in Central-Western Mexico. The natural home of the Balsas Screech Owls is the subtropical or tropical, arid forests and greatly degraded former forest. The Balsas Screech Owl also lives in low-middle elevation that ranges from 1800 feet to 4500 feet (545.5 meters to 1363.3 meters), arid thorn forests with speckled trees. The Balsas Screech Owl is considered endangered, owing to habitat loss. The Balsas Screech Owl usually constructs its nest in the holes of trees, which are made by woodpeckers.

Features of Balsas Screech Owl

The Balsas Screech-Owl is an extremely large and arresting bird with brown color eyes and with the body length of 10 1/2 inches (26.3 cm) and a wing length between 6 7/8 inches and 7 3/8 inches (17.0 cm and 18.5 cm). Balsas Screech Owls have a tail that ranges in length from 3 1/2 inches to 11 1/2 inches (8.8 cm to 9.0 cm), with the body mass between 150 grams and 174 grams (0.15kg and 0.17 kg).

The Balsas Screech Owl will start constructing its nest or laying of eggs during the month of June. The Balsas Screech Owl is fairly vocal, reacts well to playbacks or reproduced calls, and can frequently be seen in open areas, such as fence posts, bare trees, etc. The Balsas Screech Owl breed has a bouncing ball, with a little deeper in tone and starts with somewhat better spacing between the notes. The Balsas Screech Owl also has a fear scream call, which is extremely bold.

The facial disc of the Balsas Screech Owl is gray-brown, spotted and vermiculated brown in color. The border around the disc is dark brown in color, with a light edge. The eyebrows of the owl are brown-white in color, but they are not extremely prominent. Their eyebrows extend to the tips of their fairly small ear-tufts. Balsas Screech Owls have dark tan to golden tan eyes, and they have black rimmed eyelids. The cere and the bill are green in color and they have a gray-brown colored crown, with black-brown colored shaft-lines, some whitish marks and brown vermiculations.

The upper-parts of the Balsas Screech Owl are gray-brown in color, covered with vivacious-pink, with dark lines and vermiculations. The scapulars encompass whitish external webs, forming a white color band across their shoulder. Wing coverts are seen with white tips, generating a light second band in their closed wing. The flight feathers and tail feathers of the Balsas Screech Owls are barred light and dark.

The underparts of the Balsas Screech Owl are lighter than their upperparts, with slim dark shaft-lines and pale vermiculations. The upper breast of the Balsas Screech Owls has several wide dark tan or deep chestnut shaft-bands, offering their neck and upper breast an unevenly spotted look. The tarsi are covered with feathers up to the bottom of the big toes, which are bristled and gray-brown in color with a yellowish hint. The horn claws of the Balsas Screech Owls are seen with dark color tips.

The A-cry of the male Balsas Screech Owl is considered a noisy sequence of gruff notes, speeding up to a trill, similar to the beat of a bouncing ball. The call is replicated after some seconds. The female owl has an analogous call, which is somewhat higher in pitch. There is an additional call uttered by both genders that is a sequence of gruff, loud whinny trills.

Diet of Balsas Screech Owl

Usually, the Balsas Screech Owl prefers to feed on small creatures and other arthropods, in addition to small vertebrates.

The average lifespan of the Balsas Screech Owl is 20 years.