Blewitt-Kauz

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Blewitt-Kauz
Forest Owlet Athene blewitti by Ashahar alias Krishna Khan.jpeg

Blewitt owl ( Athene blewitti )

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Owls (Strigiformes)
Family : Real owls (Strigidae)
Genre : Little owl ( Athene )
Type : Blewitt-Kauz
Scientific name
Athene blewitti
( Hume , 1873)

The blewitt owl or banded stone owl ( Athene blewitti , syn .: Heteroglaux blewitti ) is a very rare owl that occurs in central India . In 1872 he was discovered by William Turnbull Blewitt (1816-1889). It was thought to be extinct for 113 years before being rediscovered in 1997.

description

The Blewitt owl is quite small and stocky at 23 cm. He is a typical owl with a rather nondescript hood. The underside is gray-brown with faint white spots. The wings and tail are broadly banded and are characterized by black, brown and white coloring. The tail also has a broad white tip. The chest is brown and the rest of the underside white. The face is light and the eyes are yellow.

There is a possibility of confusion with the Brahma owl ( Athene brama ), which is common on the Indian subcontinent and with whom it was previously often placed in the same species. In contrast to the Brahma owl, the Blewitt owl lacks clear white spots on the top of the head and coat and it also has a white spot on the stomach.

Way of life

The Blewitt-Kauz is evidently a resident of open, deciduous forests, loyal to their location . Its rediscovery was at a height of 460 mm above sea level. There were historical records of damp deciduous forests or dense jungles with an unclear altitude. It hunts during the day and is difficult to make out between the leaves due to its banded plumage. Little evidence is available about its diet, but it is believed to feed on small vertebrates , e.g. B. mice, birds and lizards.

Occurrence

Occurrence of the Blewitt Kautz; present (red), historical (gray)
Richard Meinertzhagen at work in the museum

The occurrence of the Blewitt owl is limited to a few populations in the Satpura Range , northeast of Mumbai , as well as in the Taloda Forest Range and Toranmal Forest Range in northern Maharashtra and southwestern Madhya Pradesh .

Rediscovery

In 1884, the British officer and bird collector James Davidson shot several specimens of the Blewitt owl in northern Maharashtra and southeastern Madhya Pradesh / western Orissa . After that, this species was lost. Only a total of seven bellows were preserved. Four of the specimens had been collected by Davidson, and another from the British Museum was considered missing. One copy came from the British officer and ornithologist Richard Meinertzhagen . According to the label, he had it on October 9, 1914 - that would be 30 years later than the rest of the birds - and at a different location - near Mandvi in ​​the Tapti Valley in the Surat- Dangs area of Gujarat in the western foothills of the Satpura Mountains - collected. The owl hadn't been seen since then. After an expedition in 1975 (by Salim Ali and Sidney Dillon Ripley ) was unsuccessful, this species was declared extinct. Ripley and Ali used the Meinertzhagen reports as a basis for this investigation.

Meinertzhagen was a colorful personality. According to his own statements, he worked, among other things, as a British spy during the First World War and in 1917 even participated in the attempt to free the Russian tsarist family from their captivity in Yekaterinburg . He was also a recognized ornithologist who, in the course of his life, amassed a remarkable collection of bird hides . However, the Scottish ornithologist Phillip Clancey , who had traveled with Meinertzhagen and collected with him, pointed out very early on that many of Meinertzhagen's labels were labeled with questionable locations or dates. In the early 1990s, the ornithologist pointed Alan G. Knox the example of Birkenzeisigen after that it was in some of the copies in Meinertzhagens collection stolen Skins, had umpräpariert the Meinertzhagen and relabeled. This was the reason to thoroughly examine the bellows of the Blewitt owl from Meinertzhagen's collection. It ultimately turned out that the bellows allegedly collected by Meinertzhagen was the missing bellows in the British Museum that James Davidson had shot in 1884. The blewitt owl was last sighted in 1884 and no observation indicated a spread in Gujarat. With the help of Robert Prys-Jones , head of the bird department at the Natural History Museum in London , the correct area of ​​origin of the bellows Davidson collected was finally found out. A new search in the Satpura Range in November 1997 under the direction of the American ornithologist Pamela C. Rasmussen finally brought the longed-for success and the very first photo of this species.

Danger

In 2000, a search in 14 forest areas found 25 birds at four locations in their former range in northern Maharashtra and southwestern Madhya Pradesh , including three pairs in Taloda Forest Rank e and seven pairs in Toranmal Forest Range . Another search found five more positions in the Satpura Range.

The Blewitt owl has probably always been a rare bird. Today it is acutely threatened with extinction. Large parts of its former distribution area have been destroyed by clearing and the remaining forest areas are also under enormous pressure from the local population. Birdlife estimates the population at 50 to 250 specimens.

literature

Single receipts

  1. ↑ Pankaj Koparde, Prach Mehta, Sushma Reddy, Uma Ramakrishnan, Shomita Mukherjee, VV Robin: The critically endangered forest owlet Heteroglaux blewitti is nested within the currently recognized Athene clade: A century-old debate. PLoS ONE 13 (2): e0192359. doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0192359
  2. ^ A b W. Holt, R. Berkley, C. Deppe, P. Enríquez Rocha, JL Petersen, JL Rangel Salazar, KP Segars, KL Wood & CJ Sharpe: Forest Owlet ( Heteroglaux blewitti ) . In: J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, DAChristie & E. de Juana (Eds.): Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive . Lynx Edicions, Barcelona 2014 (accessed January 13, 2015)
  3. ↑ Dominic Couzens: Rare Birds - Survivors, Evolution Losers and the Lost. Haupt Verlag, Bern 2011, p. 196 ISBN 978-3-258-07629-4
  4. ^ Sálim Ali: President's Letter 'Mystery' Birds of India - 3 Blewitt's Owl or Forest Spotted Owlet . In: A Bird's Eye View. The Collected Essays and Shorter Writings of Sálim Ali . Vol. 1. Permanent Black, Delhi 2007, ISBN 81-7824-170-6 , pp. 300–302, here p. 300.
  5. ^ Alan G. Knox: Richard Meinertzhagen - a case of fraud examined . In: The Ibis . Vol. 135, No. 3, 1993, pp. 320-325, here p. 320.
  6. ↑ Dominic Couzens: Rare Birds - Survivors, Evolution Losers and the Lost. Haupt Verlag, Bern 2011, p. 198 ISBN 978-3-258-07629-4

Web links

Commons : Blewitt-Kauz ( Athene blewitti )  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files