The Brown Wood Owl (Strix leptogrammica) is an owl which is a resident breeder in south Asia from India and Sri Lanka east to western Indonesia and south China. This species is a part of the family of owls known as typical owls (Strigidae), which contains most species of owl. It belongs to the earless owl genus Strix.
The Brown Wood Owl is medium large (45–57 cm), with upperparts uniformly dark brown, with faint white spotting on the shoulders. The underparts are buff with brown streaking. The facial disc is brown or rufous, edged with white and without concentric barring, and the eyes are dark brown. There is a white neckband. The sexes are similar.
The call is a (hoo) hoo hoo HOO or a deep goke-goke-ga-LOOO or a loud scream. The alarm call is a bark, wow-wow. Some subspecies are known to produce distinct vocalizations; they are also different in appearance and parapatric, and might be distinct species: The northern Strix (leptogrammica) newarensis group (Himalayan Wood-owl; present subspecies newarensis, ticehursti, laotiana and caligata) which occur from the Himalayan foothills of Kashmir east to Taiwan have a soft low to-hooh not unlike a rock dove cooing. S. (l.) bartelsi (Bartels's Wood-owl), Javan Wood-owl from Java, the southeasternmost taxon, has a loud, forceful, single HOOH! with long pauses between calls.
It is an uncommon resident bird of dense forests. This species is very nocturnal but it can often be located by the small birds that mob it while it is roosting in a tree. It feeds mainly on small mammals birds and reptiles. It nests in a hole in a tree or on a forked trunk, laying two eggs.
Famous quotes containing the words brown, wood and/or owl:
“Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
“it was older sure than this year’s cutting,
Or even last year’s or the year’s before.
The wood was gray and the bark warping off it
And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis
Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“I weathered some merry snow-storms, and spent some cheerful winter evenings by my fireside, while the snow whirled wildly without, and even the hooting of the owl was hushed. For many weeks I met no one in my walks but those who came occasionally to cut wood and sled it to the village.... For human society I was obliged to conjure up the former occupants of these woods.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)