The Wilderness Films team came across this often-heard but not-so-often-seen owl at our conservation estate in Uttarakhand. We hope to protect it's habitat going forward and encourage the species to breed and proliferate in its own modest way, in the middle hills of the Himalaya.

Hear it's lovely, wild and resonant call on a full-moon night in Uttarakhand!

The Mountain Scops Owl is a small scops owl with short, blunt wings, and short ear-tufts.

There are many different colour morphs, as well as considerable individual variation in colour.

The facial disc is rufous-brown with conspicuous bristles. The bristly feathers are pale at the base and tipped blackish. The eyes are golden-yellow or greenish-yellow. The bill is pale horn-coloured, whitish, or wax-yellow. Ear-coverts and cheeks are barred blackish, while the collar is whitish or rufous-buff with obscure bars of blackish and dark brown or blackish tips. The forehead and sides of the crown, including the short ear-tufts, are sometimes paler and buffish, with the crown having many pale rufous spots edged with black that often broaden on the hindneck and back into bars.
Upperparts are dark tawny-brown or rufous-brown, vermiculated with blackish. Inner scapulars form a prominent row of feathers with clear white outer webs and bold black tips. The median wing-coverts are usually boldly marked with buff and black. The primaries are barred rufous-brown and dark brown. The tail is rufous-brown with blackish bars mottled and broken by chestnut bands.

Underparts are whitish, barred rufous with small triangular paired black and white spots.

Tarsi are densely feathered up to and often over the base of the toes, which are whitish to pale flesh, or fleshy-brown.

Length 18-20cm. Wing length 129-152mm. Tail length 65-89mm. Weight 53-112g.

The Mountain Scops Owl is a nocturnal bird, starting its activity during and after dusk. Frequents deep and shady gullies and ravines, foraging in the lower parts of the densest fores