Mystery Bird: Barn Owl, Tyto alba

My first thought was "Barn Owl", but looking carefully, the plumage looks too dark for that. It also looks to me like this bird was smaller; the overall proportions of what's left of the body seem fairly small in comparison with the talon at the bottom of the frame. I still think "owl", but I'm going to go smaller, and guess that this was the red race of the Eastern Screech-Owl.

I'm way short of certain, though, and look forward to seeing what others think.

NO, NO, NO. No dead bird pictures, please. Too painful.

dinner

This is my first visit to Your site.
Are all of Your 'Mystery Fauna' road kills?
if so, i'm of like mind........
(driving down the road; spotting a blob; "What's that?")
knowing very little about birds/my brother is the ornothologist/ i'd say this is a picture of some lucky varmits lunch to be.
Best!motsfo
good photography

I could send you the photo of the remains of the hawks dinner that I am posting in a few days...but that IS a little to clinical.

Hey John,

When describing this particular subspecies, it is rumored that the nephew overheard the uncle exclaiming "not tonight Joséphine, I must find this 'meadow inhabitant'"...

For comparison: Eastern Screech-Owl talons

For comparison: Eastern Screech-Owl (Red Morph) wing feathers

John C, are you sure this is an owl? David's photos don't match what I can see here. I count 6 or 7 bars on the Screech-owl's wings but only about 4 on this bird and the talons look brown-grey and not pink.

These feathers look like those of a small hawk like this Red-tailed Hawk from the same location photographed by the same photographer.

http://www.jrcompton.com/photos/The_Birds/J/LRGV-II/J104892-redtail-win…

Maggie, I don't see how we can call a Red-tailed Hawk a 'small hawk'. They're one of the larger raptors in North America, with only Ferruginous Hawk, Osprey, Gyrfalcon, and the 2 eagles averaging larger (by weight). It's hard to tell, but this bird appears to have feathers on the tibiotarsus. If so, that would rule out any raptor in N. Am. except Golden Eagle, Ferruginous Hawk, and Rough-legged Hawk.

I'm not entirely convinced that this is a Screech-Owl. For one thing, red morphs are in a decided minority in the mexican population, which is what I would expect in the Rio Grande Valley. For another, the body feathers with small spots don't match any spot on a Screech. I was thinking about Chuck-will's-widow, since I couldn't see any fringing on the flight feathers, but then David mentioned the talons, that I had somehow missed. After further reflection, I think John was right on -- this is most likely a female Barn Owl -- rusty color, barred flight feathers, white on the inner portion of the secondaries, and tawny/rusty body feathers with small dark spots.

Maggie/Paul/John,

My presenting details of the Eastern Screech-Owl was indeed to assist in ruling out that particular species, but I do think that the dark-banded remiges and speckled feathers are a tandem combination only found in one raptor, but if in doubt, look to Napoleon...

Maggie, these are what the flight feathers of an adult Red-tailed Hawk would look like, and also those of an immature Red-tailed- note that the amount of barring on both is considerably greater (and narrower) than that in the photo above...

And maybe because I really like this resource (the Feather Atlas), these are the flight feathers of the Western Screech-Owl, whose range does overlap with the Eastern right about where this photo was taken but within which species I don't believe there is a red morph...

and another photo of the flight feathers of a (light morph) Rough-legged Hawk, too big to be as small as the raptor in our photo, and once again, distinctly different in terms of banding and coloration to our subject

Oh thankyou psweet (are you Paul?), I see that now- I'm still starting out and concentrating on things like color and shape, etc. so relative size and other fine details still escape me!

I too think this is a Barn Owl because of the dots and the feather photos really accentuate the difference between these birds.

David, and what of Napoleon and Josephine? I know your clues would test any Times Xword practitioner but (after the fact) they really do make this fun and help me to piece together information about each species.

Maggie, since I was the one who proferred the photo intially, I will no doubt be soundly chastized if I fill in too much too soon, so perhaps an early morning sortie before the 48-hour deadline will suffice...

Paul, I think most of the white you see is the trailing half of the primaries, another characteristic that I think is diagnostic on this bird (I used to handle a couple, along with a Kestrel, tinnunculus not sparverius, a "real" Sparrowhawk, and the biggest of all, a huge Buzzard, Buteo buteo, where I went to school in Scotland)

Huh. I guess I should have stuck with my first instinct.

John, as I mentioned earlier, for me the tandem combination of dark-banded remiges and speckled feathers are pretty much definitive- examining the primaries more closely confirms Barn Owl with the trailing half of each primary white (both sexes).

Paul, I agree too that this must be a female. Certainly in British Barn Owls (the nominate subspecies alba), females tend to be that rich brown, whereas males are a lighter brown or even buff-yellow, and where there is gray, the females have it more darkly- this holds true for the barring on the primaries also, lighter for males, darker for females- if there is no barring, it is probably a male... there are a few other coloration differences that I seem to remember were key: if the tail is light of white or has no barring, it is almost always a male; males tend to also have white throats, whereas females have buff ones- if it is brown, it is almost certainly female; both sexes can have extensive speckling, but again if there is little or none, it is almost certainly male, and also if there is extensive speckling on the undersides of the primaries (which are usually white), then it is almost certainly female...

Maggie, I couldn't translate Tyto alba drectly because it simply means "white owl" and Grrl would have sacked me, however a couple of clues did refer to the naturalist who described it and the subspecies: "it is rumored that the nephew overheard the uncle exclaiming 'not tonight Joséphine, I must find this 'meadow inhabitant'"- in fact Napoleon Bonaprate's nephew was indeed the naturalist and the subspecies found from Canada through the US to Mexico is pratincola from the Latin pratum meaning "meadow" and incola meaning "inhabitant."

Finally, here is another view of the same unfortuante bird

aw, i'm not THAT bad, am i?

*eats worms*

Except for the Meadowlark a few weeks ago, this is the only roadkill I have ever seen here on this site so I'm not sure what mots @#4 was referring to. It strikes me that being able to identify a dead bird or interesting feathers (roadkill or predator) is as useful as seeing them live when you might not even be able to see them long enough to get a good enough id.

Our local barn owls wear white pants. Perhaps it's an immature. A pencil would be good in the photo for scale.

If you had bothered to link my copyrighted photo that you have used without permission or link to the page you stole it from, even your crack bird identifiers would have seen what bird it truly is.

http://www.jrcompton.com/photos/The_Birds/J/Birds_rio2.html#deadbarnowl

Next time, ask.

J R Compton
http://www.JRCompton.com/photos/The_Birds/J/

hello JR Compton,

once again, i thank you for giving me permission to use your image of the dead barn owl, as provided to me in email on 13 january 2010 at 10:39pm:

okay. one-time use only. if image is same size as original, leave the copyright me notice on. if it's smaller, add the regular text size credit adjacent to the photo as used: "©JRCompton.com/birds"

the email you sent to me has been forwarded back to you.

Oh, sorry, I was all het up tracking down illicit uses of my photographs - found about a dozen, and I forgot you had permission and now to choose among them anytime. I add a bunch 2-3 times a week. There's lots I haven't I.D.ed yet. I may be better at the photo than the identifying.

Wish I could delete my "if you had bothered to link" angry email above. Sorry, all. Love that you'll now link the context on my Journal that often shows other shots of the same bird. Grrl did everything right. It was me out of synch with the world, again.

The pencil is a good idea. Will try to remember scale next time I have time with a dead bird. I think I still have a pelican a dog mauled in plastic in my garage. Death is part of life.

Thanks,
; j r