The Japanese Scops Owl, Otus semitorques, is an owl which is a resident breeder in Japan.
This species is a part of the larger grouping of owls known as typical owls, Strigidae, which contains most species of owl. The other grouping is the barn owls, Tytonidae.
It is very similar to the slightly smaller Collared Scops Owl, O. bakkamoena of which it is sometimes considered a race.
It nests in tree holes. The call of the male is a low sad sounding whoop.
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—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“For sounds in winter nights, and often in winter days, I heard the forlorn but melodious note of a hooting owl indefinitely far; such a sound as the frozen earth would yield if struck with a suitable plectrum, the very lingua vernacula of Walden Wood, and quite familiar to me at last, though I never saw the bird while it was making it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)