Although only the masked owl survives on Lord Howe today, several species of
owls were introduced there, including boobooks from eastern Australia,
the masked owl, the Australian barn owl, the American barn owl and the great
horned owl.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/rats-lord-howes-owls-may-be-sent-home-to-roost-20100622-yvs2.html
From: Phil & Sue Gregory <>
To: Birding Aus <>
Sent: Sunday, 17 March 2013 3:03 PM
Subject: Lord Howe Masked Owls?
I have the fascinating and wonderfully illustrated new Owls of the World- A
Photographic Guide by Heimo Mikkola, which closely follows Konig and Weick's
second edition "Owls of the World" taxonomy and includes many shall we say
proactive potential splits. Barn Owl has been subdivided at last and many
island taxa get elevated to species level, including something called the Boang
Barn Owl from a tiny island off New ireland. There is now the American Barn Owl
Tyto furcata as distinct from our own T. delicatula, and much to my amazement
the author makes the claim that this American Barn Owl is the taxon that was
introduced to Lord Howe island. I'd always understood these are Masked Owls, so
this was something of a surprise and may of course be in error, but has anyone
heard anything about this?
The book is a great read and has wonderful photos, with a profusion of new
Scops Owls from SE Asia and Wallacea. Oddly it regards the basically unknown
Manus Masked Owl Tyto manusi known from 2 specimens and unseen since the
1930's, as a subspecies of Masked Owl, which I find very strange and
illogical. This is probably the least known New Guinea bird, and bizarrely
classified as Vulnerable by BirdLife, when surely Data Deficient should be the
category?)
Phil Gregory
Website 2: http://www.cassowary-house.com.au/
===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
http://birding-aus.org/
===============================
===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
http://birding-aus.org
===============================
|
