Long eared owl



This bird is referred to as Asia Otus in its scientific terminology. The bird belongs to the family of owls which are normally found breeding the North America, Asia and Europe region of the geography. The species is a part of owl’s species and belong to the strigidae category.
These are medium sized birds with length being around 37 cms and upon completely opening their wings, the width or the wingspan can be up to 98cms. It can also weigh up to 435 gms which is quite a lot for this bird. There is also a feather set in white colour between the two eyes. The ears are erected and quite tough in nature with a black ear tuft on those. The tufts are positioned in the center of the head. The head is a rounded one which is quite the similar to the owl family. It has been seen that the female would normally show a bigger sizing in comparison to the male bird and often is darker in colour too in comparison. Apart from these differences there are no other differences among both the sexes and the outlook is quite same. The bird has brownish feathers which vertical streaks on those feathers, a clear sign of this variety. The toes and tarsus are completely feathered up to and eye disks become the major symbol of this species of owls. The eye disks are normally darker in colour or they can be rusty orange. The species is nocturnal and can be seen roosting during the daytime over the tree tops in safer places.
The bird breeds normally from the beginning of February to the month of July and can migrate as per the requirement. They tend to move towards southern direction during the winter times and can fly back with stabilization in temperature. These birds are much more comfortable living in a forest cover with lot of hidings rather than open areas or human intervention. They love to make their nests on trees which are coniferous in nature. They would normally pile up sticks, twigs or use nests made out of sticks by other birds like hawks and crows for their purpose. The bird can lay up to 6 eggs at a time and the incubation practice goes on for some 25-30 days. These birds also do communal nesting which is an interesting feature of theirs. The bird normally moves around in the open during night times and can do it for long time. They have huge wings which is a little stiff in nature and allows them to fly slowly only. The bird does fly even slower while it is on the hunting spree and can look for rodents and birds and sometime mammals of smaller size for its purpose.
This bird is extremely tough to sight and the only best time would be while they are migrating towards or coming back from migration. The male makes a hooting sound and that is repeated within a two minute frequency. There is also a different sound which they make to symbolize alarms around them.

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