Quote:
Original posted by Ronaldo at 5/12/2013 21:37 
Bart, I think the features you mention depend on the owl. May be more pictures would clarify the extent of stripes on the belly. If you look at Oriental Bird pictures, it is not as obvious as you say. ...
Yes, you made a good point here. There is often variation. For example, a Short-eared Owl's eyes are supposed to be yellow (never orange) and a Long-eared Owl's eyes orange. But the latter can sometimes show orange-yellow eyes. Wilson's bird looks like a Short-eared if you see its eye.
There is obviously some variation on the underparts too. But one bird on the photographs (
http://bit.ly/1bn6jnB), can only be seen from aside. And the belly (which is not visible) is not the same as the flanks (which are visible). So to be more precise: Short-eared Owl shows dark markings on the breast and the flanks and generally not on the belly and vent. The two other photo's (
http://bit.ly/1iGTo5q and
http://bit.ly/1gcEy4R) do show this, in my view, but maybe not as obvious as one would have thought from my writing.
In Long-eared Owl the marking runs down to the belly and even further. A good example to show the difference:
http://bit.ly/1dURWdx (and, yes, the middle one is an odd bird...).
You can see a Long-eared from below here:
http://bit.ly/IHK4xi. Compare again to these:
http://bit.ly/18osFnp and
http://bit.ly/1gKeOKz.
And then I came across this one:
http://bit.ly/18INaxQ. A Long-eared in all respects (e.g. pattern of tail and outer primaries), but with a clearly unmarked belly...
However, a difference that is more obvious, is the pattern of the dark markings. As I said, just stripes in Short-eared and stripes and anchors in Long-eared. Combined with tail pattern and outer primary pattern, it doesn't leave much choice than name Wilson's bird a Long-eared.
Bart
