Grey-bellied Little Owl (1 Viewer)

[Markus Lagerqvist]

Hi,

Has this been mentioned before here? Grey-bellied Little Owl (Athene poikilis)?

Recently described and accepted as a good species in the new Helm guide "Owls of the World". Lives in moutain forests at 2,200-3,300 masl in Yahang and Baosin districts in W Sichuan.

 

[Paul Leader]

Nore sure, but it's not recently described. This link:
http://www.raptors-international.org/book/birds_of_prey_1991/Xiao-Ti_De-hao_1991_159-166.pdf

includes this reference:

YANG LAN et al. 1988. A new species of Athene-Athene poikilis sp. nov. (Strigiformes) (Strigidae). SFOCA

 

[Daniel Philippe]

In H&M3, there is a footnote saying that Holt et al. 1999 (HBW 5, p. 226) reported that Athene brama poikila Yang & Li 1989 has been reidentified as Aegolius funereus.

 

[Markus Lagerqvist]

In H&M3, there is a footnote saying that Holt et al. 1999 (HBW 5, p. 226) reported that Athene brama poikila Yang & Li 1989 has been reidentified as Aegolius funereus.

Interesting! Wonder if Mikkola disagrees w/ Holt or hasn't picked up on this?

 

[l_raty]

In H&M3, there is a footnote saying that Holt et al. 1999 (HBW 5, p. 226) reported that Athene brama poikila Yang & Li 1989 has been reidentified as Aegolius funereus.

Sun Y.-H., Bi Z.-L., Scherzinger W. (2003): Belly-mottled little owl Athene brama poikila should be boreal owl (Aegolius funereus beickianus). [In Chinese, English abstract & captions.] Acta Zool. Sin. 49: 389-392.
(You may experience problems to open the pdf if you don't have Chinese characters installed for you reader.)

 

[Markus Lagerqvist]

You may experience problems to open the pdf if you don't have Chinese characters installed for you reader.

Works fine, but quite astonishing if this has been totally overlooked in the new Owl-guide :eek!:

Seems like the chapter on Grey-bellied Little Owl is based on the original description...

 

[lewis20126]

Works fine, but quite astonishing if this has been totally overlooked in the new Owl-guide :eek!:

Seems like the chapter on Grey-bellied Little Owl is based on the original description...

Crikey, sounds like its worth waiting for a second edition!


Interesting in any event, as I hadn't realised there was an (isolated?) form of Boreal owl in western Sichuan. I assume a parallel with the funebris Three-toed Woodpecker, Pere David's Owl (as an isolated relic of Ural) and perhaps others.

cheers, alan

 

[Markus Lagerqvist]

Crikey, sounds like its worth waiting for a second edition!

Well, wrong or not in this case, it's still a mouth watering book, with great shots of a very large percentage of all the world's owls |=)|

 

[DMW]

Crikey, sounds like its worth waiting for a second edition!


Interesting in any event, as I hadn't realised there was an (isolated?) form of Boreal owl in western Sichuan. I assume a parallel with the funebris Three-toed Woodpecker, Pere David's Owl (as an isolated relic of Ural) and perhaps others.

cheers, alan

We had a calling Tengmalm's Owl at Jiuzhaiguo in the mid 1990s, during an off-piste camping trip.

There is a small isolated dot on the distribution map in Konig et al for beickianus, which is the taxon we presumably saw. Given how under-recorded this species can be, there must be a reasonable expectation that it is more widespread in SW China than currently known.

 

[Richard Klim]

My copy of Mikkola 2012 is reportedly in the post...

FWIW, König & Weick 2008 treats beickianus as a synonym of Aegiolus funereus caucasicus.