Owls of Lake Titicaca

I made a special effort to find the reserve's three species of owls on a couple of census trips north of Puno.

The most easily found owl is, of course, the burrowing owl Athene cunicularia:



Most often, it is observed on the ground in the evening:

Possibly the least often seen, for which I had to do some bouldering on low cliffs, is the barn owl, Tyto alba:

And its characteristic feathers and pellets, found much more often than the bird itself:

The great horned owl's pellets, on the other hand, can be a little hard to find:

This is probably because of its tendency to sleep in trees:

Another great horned owl Bubo virginianus, this time in a eucalyptus tree:



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