Black-banded Owl

The black-banded owl is medium-sized (30–36 cm (12–14 in)), blackish all over and densely striated with horizontal, wavy, white bars. A black face mask encircle its eyes. It has a rounded head with no ear tufts, and a yellow-orange bill and feet. The tail is sooty-brown, with 4 to 5 narrow white bars and a white terminal band. Primary feathers are significantly darker than the rest of its plumage. Black bristles and feathers are found around the bill and along the leg to the base of the toes.

Black-banded owls are mostly found below an elevation of 500 m (2,000 ft), with rare records of them at up to 1,400 m (5,000 ft). They inhabit various types of forests throughout the South-American landscape, mostly tropical and subtropical forests. In Ecuador they were almost exclusively recorded in the humid forest of the North-East, they were also found in the Atlantic, igapò, and terra-firme forests of Brazil, Araucaria forests, and man-made or disturbed habitats, such as clearings, agricultural land and suburban areas.

Little information is available on the food habits of this species, but bats have been found in the stomachs of adult birds and they have been observed eating and feeding moths to their nestlings. The black-and-white owl, the closest relative of the black-banded owl, has been seen capturing large insects, such as beetles (mostly scarabaeid, curculionid and cerambycid), grasshoppers (Acrididae), and cockroaches (Blattidae). As for vertebrate prey, they fed on bats (primarily Artibeus jamaicens) while Mottled Owls, another Ciccaba species, ate predominantly small rodents.