Austral Pygmy-Owl
Glaucidium nana
Very small owl of southern South America; no other pygmy-owl in its range. Overall plumage tones vary from brown to rusty, rarely gray-brown. Often active in daytime. Fairly common but easily overlooked, although persistent tooting song and presence of mobbing small birds can draw attention. Found in forests, woodlands, parks, matorral with taller trees, and locally in more open country. Ranges low to high, from canopy of tallest trees to low in bamboo thickets; sometimes perches on roadside wires.
Identification
The austral pygmy owl is 17 to 21 cm (6.7 to 8.3 in) long. Males weigh 56 to 75 g (2.0 to 2.6 oz) and females 70 to 100 g (2.5 to 3.5 oz). It has gray-brown and red morphs and intergrades between them. Adults of both morphs have a pale grayish brown face with dark flecks, whitish "brows" over pale yellow eyes, and black "false eyes" on the nape. The gray-brown morph's upperparts are dark grayish brown with whitish dots of variable size and shape. The tail is also dark grayish brown with narrow buffy bars. The throat is white, the sides of the upper breast dark grayish brown, and the underparts off-white with dark grayish brown streaks. The red morph has a similar pattern but reddish brown replaces the dark grayish brown.
Taxonomy
The austral pygmy owl has sometimes been treated as a subspecies of ferruginous pygmy owl (Glaucidium brasilianum) but DNA studies and other data support its being a species in its own right. It is monotypic.
- Scientific name
- Glaucidium nana
- Authority
- (King, PP, 1827)
- Order
- Strigiformes
- Family
- Strigidae
- Genus
- Glaucidium
Range and habitat
The austral pygmy owl is found from approximately Valparaíso Province in Chile and Neuquén Province in western Argentina south to the tip of Tierra del Fuego. In Chile it ranges in elevation from sea level to 2,000 m (6,600 ft). It inhabits a variety of landscapes from city parks and farmland with scattered trees to deciduous forests and thickets, evergreen shrublands, temperate and southern beech (Nothofagus) forests, and Patagonian scrub/steppe.
- Migration
- Complete migrants
Behavior
Migration pattern: Complete migrants.
Conservation
Population trend: stable.
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
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Cyanocorax mystacalis
One of the most striking and recognizable birds of the dry “Tumbesian Region” that encompasses parts of western Ecuador and northwestern Peru. No other bird in range has a similar blue, white, and black pattern. Adults have yellow eyes. Young birds have dark eyes and slightly duller plumage. Noisy gangs of these impressive birds roam through dry forest giving a wide variety of calls, many of which have an odd, metallic quality.
Lemon-rumped Warbler
Phylloscopus chloronotus
Small leaf warbler with many extremely similar relatives. Like other “Pallas’s-type” leaf warblers, has olive-yellow upperparts, pale underparts, prominent brow and crown stripes, double wingbars, and a pale rump. Unlike Ashy-throated and Buff-barred Warblers, lacks any white on outer tail edges. Pallas’s averages yellower-headed and brighter overall. Gansu and Chinese Leaf Warblers can be incredibly similar, but Lemon-rumped averages whiter-browed and yellower-bellied than the former, more contrastingly-marked on the head than the latter, and darker-billed than both. As with many other physically similar leaf warblers, best distinguished by voice and habitat. Breeds in coniferous and mixed forests at mid- to high-elevation forests, though may descend into foothills in the winter. Two song types are both highly distinctive; one is a buzzy, descending rattling trill and the other is a series of high-pitched clicking twitters. Call is a loud, strident pair of notes: “pse-tew!”
Damara Red-billed Hornbill
Tockus damarensis
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