Rescued Owl - Ecuador - Puyo (Edge of amazon and Andes!) (1 Viewer)

Hi,

I am currently working in an animal rescue centre in Ecuador. We have an owl that was rescued and hand reared from a chick. We have slowly been introducing live food which it was initially refusing to eat (though in the last few days it has started to eat live mice). This means that we are hoping to release it into the wild within the next few weeks. However, we have not managed to identify the species of owl (we think it is a type of screech owl) and so do not know its natural habitat. It was found in Puyo which is on the edge of the amazon but is also fairly close to the Andes. I have photos of the owl here...

http://www.gloopics.com/main.php?g2_itemId=3415

If anyone can ID the bird and give information about it's natural habitat, prey or any other advice that would be great.

cheers
Ben


http://www.amazoniarescue.org/en/index.php

This looks closest to a red morph Tropical Screech-Owl (lowland and lower Andes in forest edges, second growth, villages, etc.). The yellow eyes, whitish eyebrows, dark border the facial disk are good marks (but hard to tell for certain in these photos). Vermiculated Screech-Owl (in Andean foothill forests) is similar but smaller, without dark borders to the facial disk. Tawny-bellied Screech-Owl (lowland forest) is also possible; it should have a pale band that circles the back of the head.
Andy

Definitely Tropical, though I'd call this brown rather than rufous (the "true" rufous of most population is far more striking, though one could argue that referring to these as morphs, considering that the variation is rather clinal in most populations, is questionable). In addition to the features mentioned by Andy, Vermiculated (or whatever taxonomic treatment one may prefer of the east Ecuadorian foothill population) has a rather different pattern below, Tawny-bellied (regardless of morph) is darker, have a far less striking dark edge to their mask, and yellow-eyed Tawny-bellied are extremely rare (indeed, while I've seen claims of the contrary, so far I've only been able to confirm that this occurs in juv's - not ad's or sub-ad's). The pale band that circles the back of the head isn't reliable.