Brown Boobook

Brown Boobook (Ninox scutulata) is a medium-small owl with dark-brown upperparts, whitish underparts streaked reddish brown, yellow eyes and a barred tail. Body shape, bill structure, plumage pattern and voice provide the strongest field characters. Age, sex and season may alter its appearance, so identification should combine several features and careful direct field comparisons with similar species in the same habitat (Wikipedia, general species account).

It occupies forest and wooded country across southern Asia, hunting insects, small birds, rodents and lizards from a perch at night and nesting in tree cavities. Its movements and social behaviour vary through the year, with breeding birds generally more dispersed and non-breeding birds gathering where food is concentrated. The Korean vertebrate catalogue used for this guide records the species in South Korea (Wikipedia, general species account; Wildlife of Korea occurrence records).