Barking Owl

Facts about Barking Owl. The Barking Owl is a variety of owl that comes from the Ninox of the Strigidae family. "Scientific name for Barking Owl is Ninox connivens". Barking Owl also commonly called the Winking Owl or the Barking boobook. The Barking Owls are native to the mainland Australia and some parts of the Moluccas and Papua New Guinea. Barking Owls have an extremely distinguishing voice that can vary from the sound of a barking dog to a shrill scream of immense intensity similar to that of a woman. The Barking Owls are habitually considered the source to the legends and myths, surrounding a big legendary creature, called the Bunyip.

Features of Barking Owl

The Barking Owl is an average-sized bird, with the body length that ranges from 15 5/8 inches to 17 5/8 inches (39 cm to 44 cm). The Barking Owls have a wingspan that varies in length from 34 inches to 48 inches (85 cm to 120 cm), and a body weight between 380 grams and 960 grams (0.4 kg and 1.0 kg). However, male owls are 8 % to 10 % heavier than the females.

The Barking Owl has a strong brown colored body, with white colored spots on its wings and a streaked upper body. The Barking Owls have big eyes, with a yellow color iris, with a beak that has yellow color tips, without facial mask.

The underparts of the Barking Owl are brown-grey in color and they have thick white colored marks. The tail feather and flight feathers of these owls have strong brown and white color bands. In Australia, the biggest Barking Owls are seen in the southern parts of Australia, whereas the smallest of these owls can be seen in Cape York Peninsular.

The Barking Owl usually prefers to live in mainland Australia all along the northern and eastern coast of the continent and in the south west regions nearby Perth. They can be seen in Inland Australia close to waterways and lakes or other forested environments. They also exist in the Moluccas, such as Morotai, Halmahera, Obi and Bacan, and in the drier areas of Papua New Guinea. These owls that were once extensive in southern mainland Australia are less common in those areas at present.

The Barking Owl has a variety of vocalizations, which can be described as howls, growls, or screams and twittering and bleating. Howls and growls are part of a range of calls concerning with threats, chiefly during nesting. Female owls will habitually make a mild bleating noise while getting food from the male owl. A thrill variation of this hum will be made at the time of copulation.

Diet of Barking Owl

The Barking Owl has one o the most expansive diets of any owl of Australia. The Barking Owl hunts in wooded and open homes, but it usually relies on trees as its hunting perches. The Barking Owl mostly feeds on prey taken from the land, the surface of water bodies, the trees, and from the air. In some places, creatures structure the most part of prey with sizes, ranging from mice and tiny carnivorous marsupials to Brushtail possums and rabbits approximately a weight of one kg or more than that. Their favorite diet is sugar gliders, but they also feed on bats.