Shelley’s Eagle Owl

The Shelley’s Eagle Owl belongs to the family of Strigidae. The size of the owl is large. It is a rarely studied owl and it occurs in very small numbers. A specimen of the own was photographed for the first time on October 16, 2021. It was photographed in southeastern Ghana.

About Shelley’s Eagle Owl

The Dark Eagle Owl is considered as the largest eagle owl found in the world. The length of the owl is around 61 centimetres and wing chord measured around 5 centimetres. They weigh around 1.25 kilograms. However, the Shelley’s Eagle owl is larger than the dark eagle owl.

Features

The Shelley’s Eagle owl is dark black brown in colour. The under parts of the owl are white in color. The eyes of the nocturnal bird are dark brown in colour. The tail and flight feathers are brown in colour. The juveniles of the owl have larger white areas around the head.

Special features

The Shelley’s Eagle owl is the only heavily built owl with barred patterning in Africa. Every other large eagle owls that are spread in different parts of the world such as Akun eagle owl, Fraser’s eagle owl and Verreaux’s Eagle owl are all smaller than the Shelley’s Eagle Owl. The Shelley’s Eagle owls are restricted to the forests. They have never been spotted outside the forest unlike some of the other eagle owls.

Distribution

The Shelley’s Eagle owl is found in Western and Central Africa. It is also found in Sierra Leone, southern Ghana, southeastern Guinea and Ivory coast. One of the largest populations is found in Cameroon, Congo, Gabon and also in Uganda. They live in dense tropical rain forests. They are never spotted outside the forests.

Behaviour

They roost in dense foliage. They are spotted in low level trees. Their wails are “kooouw” and are much different from the other larger eagle owls. Their singing is persistent during March.

Conservation

The IUCN listed them under “Near Threatened” till 2004. Later, it uplifted to “Vulnerable” in 2018.

Threats

There are no complete studies on the Shelley’s Eagle owls. Only twenty specimens have been collected. They are threatened due to habitat loss. The destruction of Guinean forests and the Congo rain forests are the major threats of the owl.