White-throated Screech-Owl

The white-throated screech owl is a large member of its genus. It is 20 to 26 cm (7.9 to 10.2 in) long and weighs 130 to 185 g (4.6 to 6.5 oz). It is overall dark plumaged, has a round head with very small ear tufts, and a longish tail. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a dark brown head and upperparts with small blackish, reddish, and white marks. Their flight feathers and tail have narrow darker bars. They have a dark facial disc with whitish marks above and below the orange eyes and a large white area below the bill that in some postures looks like large moustaches. Their chest is dark brown with tawny spots and their belly is tawny with dusky bars and streaks. The juvenile is pale buffy gray and has a black "mask" and barring on its crown, mantle, and underparts. M. a. meridensis has a whitish forehead and eyebrows, a suggestion of a nuchal collar, and a paler belly than the nominate. M. a. macabrus is similar to the nominate but with finer markings on the underparts. M. a. obscurus and M. a. remotus are darker than the nominate, blackish above with few lighter spots, a dark breast, and only faint bars and streaks on the belly.

The subspecies of the white-throated screech owl are found thus:

M. a. obscurus, Serranía del Perijá on the northern Colombia/northwestern Venezuela border M. a. meridensis, Andes of western Venezuela M. a. macabrus, Colombia's Central and Western Andes south through Ecuador into Peru's Department of Cajamarca M. a. albogularis, eastern Andes of Colombia and Ecuador M. a. remotus, eastern Andes of Peru south to central Bolivia's Cochabamba Department The white-throated screech owl inhabits the interior and edges of open humid evergreen montane forest and cloud forest and semi-open areas of scattered trees. In elevation it usually ranges between 2,000 and 3,000 m (6,600 and 9,800 ft) but is found locally as low as 1,300 m (4,300 ft) and, on the east slope of the Peruvian Andes, as high as 3,700 m (12,100 ft).

The white-throated screech owl is nocturnal. It forages in the forest canopy, mostly for insects and other arthropods and perhaps small vertebrates as well.