About Megascops albogularis (Cassin, 1849)
Megascops albogularis, commonly known as the white-throated screech owl, is a large species within its genus. It measures 20 to 26 cm (7.9 to 10.2 in) in length and weighs 130 to 185 g (4.6 to 6.5 oz). It has overall dark plumage, a round head with very small ear tufts, and a somewhat long tail. For adult individuals of the nominate subspecies, the head and upperparts are dark brown, marked with small blackish, reddish, and white spots. Narrow darker bars appear on their flight feathers and tail. They have a dark facial disc with whitish markings above and below their orange eyes, plus a large white patch below the bill that can look like large moustaches in certain postures. Their chest is dark brown with tawny spots, while their belly is tawny with dusky bars and streaks. Juveniles are pale buffy gray, with a black "mask" and barring across the crown, mantle, and underparts. The subspecies M. a. meridensis has a whitish forehead and eyebrows, a faint nuchal collar, and a paler belly than the nominate subspecies. Subspecies M. a. macabrus is similar to the nominate, but has finer markings on its underparts. Subspecies M. a. obscurus and M. a. remotus are darker than the nominate; they are blackish above with few light spots, have a dark breast, and only faint bars and streaks on the belly. The subspecies of white-throated screech owl have the following distributions: M. a. obscurus is found in Serranía del Perijá, along the border between northern Colombia and northwestern Venezuela; M. a. meridensis occurs in the Andes of western Venezuela; M. a. macabrus ranges through the Central and Western Andes of Colombia, south through Ecuador into Peru's Department of Cajamarca; M. a. albogularis (the nominate subspecies) inhabits the eastern Andes of Colombia and Ecuador; M. a. remotus is found in the eastern Andes of Peru, extending south to Cochabamba Department in central Bolivia. The white-throated screech owl lives in the interior and edges of open humid evergreen montane forest and cloud forest, as well as in semi-open areas with scattered trees. Its usual elevational range is between 2,000 and 3,000 m (6,600 and 9,800 ft), but it can be found locally as low as 1,300 m (4,300 ft), and as high as 3,700 m (12,100 ft) on the east slope of the Peruvian Andes.
