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Northern Saw-whet Owl
This little study needs an explanation. It shows a Northern Saw-whet Owl, but it is the very distinctly marked (and seldom seen or illustrated) subspecies found only on Queen Charlotte Island, off the coast of British Columbia. It was named by Toronto-based naturalist, J. H. Fleming after Major Allan Brooks, the India-born Canadian bird artist and illustrator whose work was enormously influential on me as a youngster growing up. The specimen I used to help me get the colour and markings correct was from the Fleming collection, in fact, a collection now housed in the Royal Ontario Museum, to whom I am eternally grateful for all their wonderful support through my lifetime.



This is not a great painting, more of a study, but I wanted to pay tribute to this endemic Canadian form so seldom illustrated. The pose is based on a sketch from a live bird (but of the nominate race). They are common migrants here in southern Ontario, but can be very difficult to find. Once found, however, they pose very nicely.



These little owls from Queen Charlotte Islands…they weigh around eighty or ninety grams…are very similar to the immature plumage of the widely spread nominate race, and a third subspecies, A. a. brodkorbi, from Mexico, but are not quite the same. Those immature birds do not have the reddish streaking on the buffy background of the belly (and have darker eyes…sort of dusky-greenish).



There have been suggestions that these distinctive Queen Charlotte birds should be considered a distinct species, because of how different they are from other Northern Saw-whet Owls, but they do freely hybridize with mainland birds that make it to Queen Charlotte Island, thus fit the definition of a subspecies.


Reproduction prohibited without prior permission. © Barry Kent Mackay

The species

Classification

Order : Strigiformes
Family : Strigidae
Species : Northern Saw-whet Owl


Species photos

by the author
all photos

The photo

O.Net reference : bkma96316
Author :

Photo details

Date : 2011
Country : Canada (ca)
Region : British Columbia
Location : Kindakun Rock Kindakun Rock
Lat. : 53° 31' 55'' North
Lng. : 132° 57' 29'' West

Exif data [+][-]

Flash : no