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Grass Owl -

A new Breeding Species in Thailand -

Just a Day too Late.

Just a day to late - First Breeding Record The remains of 2 (adult Grass Owls) Killed during the night: 11th May 2007 Location: Little England, Chiand Saen, Thailand

Grass Owl - Seems we may have the first breeding record for Thailand in the area I have named little England, currently my favorite site in Chiang sean, as it’s quite good for buntings and other migrants.

First noted as we sat having a beer at one of our Harrier study sites. On the evening of 14th of April 2007.

The Owl / Owls appear at 7,06pm on the dot, in failing light.

First picked up on call, as it flew towards us over the grassland and about tree height. Call - A high pitched trilling: Thrrrriiipp - Thrrrriiipp - Thrrrriiipp - Thrrrriiipp - similar in tone to local frogs, constantly repeated and quite loud,  I was puzzled by this call, I could only think that it was either a contact call between adults and young or a begging call.

This was likely as on subsequent dates 2 and possibly 3 owls of the same species were seen together, due to the poor light, it was difficult to keep track of them and to get accurate plumage details. No direct contact was noted between these owls, they were just hunting the same area. This call is not described in the Birds of SE Asia or Birds of Thailand. 

Barn Owl:  for the past 5 years we have lived in close proximity to barn owls, the young used to sit on our balcony in Ban Por Bon and they breed in the temple opposite our place here in CS. I have never heard this call from any Barn Owl.

Plumage's: very similar to barn owl, in fact until recently I thought they probably were barn owls. However with the amount of time we have now spent studying these birds there are significant differences to Barn Owls. I would also mention that, at all of our grass Owl sites we sometimes see Barn Owls, mostly heard on call and I suppose could in fact be Grass Owls, field guides say that the calls are similar, but I have not seen a grass owl calling like a Barn Owl.

There is an excellent photo web page for Grass Owl, saves me righting up plumage details. However there are some complications re: plumage's as you will see from the photographs, we also see birds in the same variety of plumage, maybe this related to differences between male and female, juvenile and or birds in worn plumage. I would be interested to know as it will be useful for breeding studies.

Photograph courtesy of: Dr Mong

Birds of South East Asia - C Robson highlights just one of the two main plumage of Grass Owl, this caused us a lot of confusion in the initial stages of identification.

Notes.  On the initial view the bird flew over my head, I could see that the wing tips were solid black and appeared slightly fingered. It was a dull evening and I got little else, just a medium size owl. Over the following days we got the best views possible, but in the poor light very inconclusive.

Habitat: The area looks similar to an English valley, with low rolling hills and scattered trees. Centered within this valley is a wet depression where a Pied Harrier roost is sited, this area is mostly wet throughout the year, the water drains into a fish pond that has a small dam at the southern end and is bordered by fairly mature trees. The area where the owls are is adjacent to the pool and is comprised of rank grass, small dykes and rice paddies, but it’s unlikely the Owls would nest in this, as the whole area is heavily grazed by cattle.
We have spent a great deal of time searching for these owls during the day, without success.
I have searched all the derelict buildings in the surrounding area and have found no suitable trees for barn owls.

On the 2nd of April it suddenly dawned on me as to where these birds may be breeding as I had detected that the Owls had two routes and therefore could not be in the Harrier roost, also unlikely they would nest in a roost of 50 raptors.

To the north I found a likely site, a wet bog with floating water grass and a few denser clumps. We watched that evening from a small hill just to the south overlooking the bog. Two Owls appeared, promptly at 7.08, not calling, one looked suspiciously like a Barn (oddly with a blackish mantle,) and the other a Grass, they both flew south using the two available routes, minutes later 2 more were seen circling over the bog.

And so it looked as if we had found the area and over the following 2 evenings we tried to get better views. On the final evening I could hear the owls calling from the ground, at  approx 7pm, I decided best left till the morning so we just waited and had pretty good views of a grass owl in poor light.

The follow morning I went and searched the area, difficult to wade out to the likely nest site, as the floating grass sinks under your weight and the water is a meter deep. I skirted the bog and to my horror found the remains of 2 grass owls and they appeared to be adults. I immediately returned home to get Dowroong and went back to take some photographs.

I had initially thought they had been killed by a predator, at least I hoped so, Doubtful a predator wouldn't get both birds. Dowroong examined the remains and said they had been killed by people, they just rip off the feathers, chop it up and chuck it in the soup.

I had a look around and saw trail where they had walked out, very difficult getting out there and so we returned in the evening when the heats gone off. We waded out in the direction of the likely nest site and one took flight, well I have to say I was a bit confused, they looked rather like barn owls but with a dark chocolate brown mantle and upper lesser and medium coverts, the secondries were white as was the tail with a few narrow dark bars, as I approach the nesting platform 2 more flew out. One circled this area of taller grass (size 1.5 circular meter), I tried as best to pear in but I din’t want to damage the nest as the birds were still using it.

On later inspection the nest site revealed a number pellets, about 15, so light was the structure that most dropped through the grass and lost in the water, even though I carefully parted the grass stems.

It is possible that this was a roost and not the actual nest where the young were hatched, no remains of any nesting material could be seen or droppings and egg shells, as I have explained the structure was so light that the evidence is likely to have been lost given the number of Owls roosting, (approx 4), however on flushing the young owls the feathers could be seen to be still growing and there was still some remaining down.

In my experience of nest, which is limited as I'm not really into that, but I do know that many birds build a secondary nest and move the young shortly after fledging, seems they made a mistake this time.

We left a little early that evening and on our way home Dowroong , discovered Four more Owls from the back of the motor bike on the country lane from little england to Chiang Saen.

These Owls spaced at intervals of;

Klm  0  Two Owls, found to be grass owls the following evening
Klm  0.7  one, possibly related two the above pair.
Klm  1.7  one, probably a second pair.

We spent about a month trying to locate these territories, without success. I wonder now if they were young dispersing as I use that road regulary and they have not been seen recently.

Extra Note; I find it quite interesting that Barn Owl habits in Thailand are somewhat different here than in England. Rarely have I seen Barn Owls in the day time, unless they are disturbed for some reason, they always vacate they’re roost close to dark and a at similar time to Grass Owls. I would have expected Grass Owl to be a late afternoon hunters, but they seem to be nocturnal here to. As with Barn I only see them in day time, if flushed and one tome when a Drongo attacked and forced the owl to vacate it's roost.

After the Deaths - follow up notes - 27th September:

The Owls following this tragic event have done rather well, on the whole. I have done my best to get people to visit the site. Dr Mong and his Lanna Bird group came out shortly after this incident, while we were there 3 hunters shot at something, giving me the opportunity to tell them to get out as I ran at them shouting, they don't seem to have come back. I also got a visit from a Mr Kai of Thailand Consevation and also John Parr who is well known for his conservation work in Thailand. This has been very useful in demonstrating to the two homestead located on the fringe of the Bog that important people are interested in what's going on here.

We have now found a new roost at Ba Mak No and there is also the Roost at the site of the main Harrier Roost, I call oranges. So all in all we have a total of around 20 individuals at 3 sites + 1 area where the site was not found.

Photos: Dowroong Damlamajak.

Grass Owl: 2005 Romy Ocan (see above for address. I hope you don't mind me using this.

Summary

Grass Owl , is a new breeding species in Thailand, we discovered a pair with young recently and a small number of new sites, it is important that we can identify the prime breeding habitat for this species, it seems to prefer areas of wet floating bog, this habitat is fast disappearing as these bog tend to be dug out and dammed in order to store water for rice paddies. It is very time consuming to track down these Owls, they emerge from there roost at dusk almost dark. The first pair took us about 8 weeks to find the nesting area. We currently have 3 sites where Grass Owls have been seen crossing a 2 klm stretch of road, but we have been unable to find these roosts / breeding areas.

Please note if you wish to use this article, ask me first, this is an original and sole work of Mick Davies and Dowroong Danlamajak. If you would like to Donate to this project and that of the Harrier Roosts we are working on I would be very pleased.

Mick Davies and  Dowroong Damlamajak.