"Holy Grail" of Peruvian Ornithology Seen in the Wild for First Time

One of the world's smallest and rarest owls was seen for the first time in the wild. The American Bird Conservancy announced the discovery Thursday by a group of researchers monitoring Peru's northern jungle. The owl, called an "owlet" due to its emasculatingly small size, is so distinct that it has its own genus, "Xenoglaux," meaning "strange owl." According to one of the team members, the population is estimated to be less than 1,000 birds and possibly as few as 250. The bird has bright reddish-orange eyes and is no bigger than a man's fist.

You woke me up for this?!, xenoglaux loweryi
More crazy owl images in crazy Japanese you won't understand.

More like this

tags: Long-whiskered Owlet, Xenoglaux loweryi, birds, birding, ornithology Long-whiskered Owlet, Xenoglaux loweryi. The strange and extremely rare Long-whiskered Owlet, Xenoglaux loweryi, has been seen in the wild for the first time on a private conservation area in Northern Peru by researchers…
I'm going to take a bit of a departure for parrot-related news this week to focus on owls, which are solitary, nocturnal birds of prey. Recently a very rare species of owl, the long-whiskered owlet, was observed in the wild in Peru by an American ornithological team. The owlet, first discovered in…
Rock Wren, Salpinctes obsoletus. (spring song). The photographer writes; [This bird] was scurrying along a wall covered with petroglyphs on the NE side of Chaco Canyon. Perky and hardy little birds, and definitely emblematic of the desert Southwest. Image: Dave Rintoul, KSU. Birds in Science A…
A male Superb Bird of Paradise, Lophorina superba (seen from front) performing a courtship display for a female (brown) in Papua New Guinea, from "Jungles," in the "Planet Earth" series. Image: Fred Olivier/Discovery Channel and BBC. Birds in Science Red-breasted nuthatches, Sitta canadensis,…