An extremely rare owl with bright orange eyes that hadn’t been seen in more than a hundred years has been rediscovered in Malaysia. Named
Otus brookii brookii, it is a Bornean subspecies of the Rajah scops owl. Scientists last witnessed this owl back in 1892 and nobody knows what type of songs or sounds/calls it makes.
The rediscovery of the owl occurred in May of 2016 but the study was just recently published in the
Wilson Journal of Ornithology. It was witnessed and photographed in Sabah, Malaysia by Andy Boyce who is an ecologist from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. He worked with locals, people from several Indigenous communities, and officials from Sabah Park.
by Gia Yetikyel/Smithsonianmag.com
An easy way to find and identify a bird species is to listen for their unique calls. But
Otus brookii brookii, a Bornean subspecies of the Rajah scops owl, hasn’t been observed by scientists since 1892, and its song is unknown, making it that much harder to find.
Now, for the first time in more than 125 years, researchers have documented the Rajah scops owl in a study published last month in the
Wilson Journal of Ornithology.
In May 2016, Andy Boyce, an ecologist with the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, carefully observed and photographed the owl in Sabah, Malaysia. Boyce was working on his Ph.D. at the time with the University of Montana, researching how different bird species behave across various elevations. In collaboration with local residents, Sabah Park officials and several individuals from indigenous communities, like the Dusun, the rediscovery took place during a 10-year study of avian evolution in the forests of Mount Kina
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For Santa Fe tour operator Monique Schoustra, the past year was “the offseason that just kept going and going and going.”
The final credit card transaction she ran in 2020 for Great Southwest Adventures, the business she co-founded in 1998, was on March 10 the day before New Mexico announced its first three cases of COVID-19 disease and declared a public health emergency.
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic stymied her business at the beginning of its crucial season bringing tour buses to sites around northern New Mexico: the Bandelier National Monument, Chama River Valley, Pecos and Chaco national parks and Taos, among other locations.
“We were hopeful, like everyone was, that this was just going to be a few months … a temporary blip,” she recalled.
Algernon D Ammassa, Las Cruces Sun-News
Published
12:37 pm UTC May. 13, 2021
For Santa Fe tour operator Monique Schoustra, the past year was the offseason that just kept going and going and going.
The final credit card transaction she ran in 2020 for Great Southwest Adventures, the business she co-founded in 1998, was on March 10 the day before New Mexico announced its first three cases of COVID-19 disease and declared a public health emergency.
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic stymied her business at the beginning of its crucial season bringing tour buses to sites around northern New Mexico: the Bandelier National Monument, Chama River Valley, Pecos and Chaco national parks and Taos, among other locations.