Volume 20, Plate XXIX / Ornithology (Birds)

Tengmalm’s Night Owl

Noctua Tengmalmi

A rare and occasional visitant to Britain, Tengmalm’s Night Owl is known from a specimen killed near Morpeth, but is fairly common in the northern and eastern pine forests of the Continent, breeding in holes of decayed trees and ranging to North America. Largely insectivorous on moths and beetles, it also takes small mammals; its loose soft plumage is liver brown above with white scapular edges and a barred tail, measuring eight and a half to nine inches.