Brown Hawk Owl

Facts about Brown Hawk Owl, The Brown Hawk Owl is a variety of owl that comes from the genus Ninox of the Strigidae family. "Scientific name for Brown Hawk Owl is Ninox scutulata". Brown Hawk Owl is a local breeder in south Asia from Sri Lanka and India and south China and east to western parts of Indonesia. The Brown Hawk Owl is also commonly called as the Brown boobook. The Brown Hawk Owl is largely seen in the major parts of tropical South Asia, ranging from the Middle East to the southern parts of China. Brown Hawk Owls prefer to live in well-forested country and woodland.

Features of Brown Hawk Owl

The Brown Hawk Owl is an average-sized bird such that the male owls are bigger than the female ones. Brown Hawk Owls have a body length that ranges from 10 7/8 inches to 13 1/4 inches (27 cm to 33 cm).Brown Hawk Owls have a wing length between 5.8 inches and 9 3/8 inches (14.5 cm and 23.3 cm) and they have an elongated tail. These owls have a body weight, ranging from 170 grams to 230 grams (0.1 kg to 0.2 kg).

The head of the Brown Hawk Owl is spherical in shape and it has no ear-tufts. The facial disc of the owl is brown in color, with several narrow white color radially orientated lines. They have bright yellow colored eyes and a narrow dark part around them. The cere of the Brown Hawk Owl is greenish-brown or dull green in color, and its bill is bluish-black in color with a paler tip. The Brown Hawk Owl has a white colored spot on its forehead and it has chocolate-brown colored crown and nape, which are vaguely streaked ochre.

The mantle, back and wing-coverts of the Brown Hawk Owl are uniformly chocolate-brown in color. The primaries and secondaries of the bird are also chocolate-brown in color, which are unnoticeably barred ochre. The tail is somewhat long and dark brown in color with a white color tip, and is banded with wide, light grayish-brown color bars.

The underparts of the Brown Hawk Owl are white in color, with hefty drop-shaped rustic-brown lines, turning into ample chevrons on its flanks. The Tarsi of the bird are covered with feathers and its toes are thinly bristled or uncovered and they are yellow-green in color.

Diet of Brown Hawk Owl

The Brown Hawk Owl mostly feeds on big insects, like grasshoppers and beetles, but it also feeds on lizards, frogs, mice, small birds and rarely eats small insectivorous crabs and bats. Brown Hawk Owls usually hunt at dusk using a branch on a tree base or post to seek prey. Brown Hawk Owls normally jump up to grab the passing insects in their claws, and flying insects in the air similar to a Nightjar.

Breeding of Brown Hawk Owl

The breeding season of the Brown Hawk Owl varies according to the place they live. In Japan they start breeding from May to June, from March to April in Sumatra and from May to July in north India. The Brown Hawk Owl breed is extremely verbal during the breeding season, and can sing approximately incessantly for hours, particularly on moonlit nights. Both male and female Brown Hawk Owls will join in uneven duets, or numerous distant birds will reply one another from diverse directions, occasionally, producing choruses with birds in adjacent territories. The female Brown Hawk Owl will lay three to five eggs in a clutch in a tree hole.

The maximum lifespan of the Brown Hawk Owl is 10 years.