[ Update : IFLScience was contacted by Dr Alex Kirschel regarding the sighting from the Congo in 2005 who says that a positive I.D. of a Shelley ’s eagle owl was made by the expert in African ornithology , along with a team of international bird watcher , but they could not get a high quality picture . ]
The Shelley ’s eagle owl ( Bubo shelleyi ) swooped back into the public eye this week after a 150 - year respite , making its long - look appearance in Ghana . The coinage , dubbed the “ holy Sangraal ” of giant owls , has evidently been lurking in the shadows of African rainforests for the last 150 days , having not been formally sighted since the 1870s . While this is n’t to say it has n’t been tell apart by human eyes in that time , this finicky sighting is of significance as it gave scientists the chance to conduct an impromptu photoshoot with glowing results .
Though large , these birds are well camouflaged for arboreal life and so it would still have been easy to miss . gratefully , this finicky soul did n’t go unnoticed by Dr Joseph Tobias from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London , and freelance ecologist Dr Robert Williams , who handle to secure a meet visibility shot .
“ It was so large , at first we thought it was an eagle , ” Dr Tobias said in astatement . “ Luckily it perched on a miserable offshoot and when we lifted our field glasses our jaw dropped . There is no other owl in Africa ’s rainforests that with child . ”
The only photographs known to have been obtain of the species other than this one include some grainy shots of a captive bird consider in 1975 at Antwerp Zoo , and a blurry photograph captured in Congo back in 2005 .
The bird ’s tremendous size support in stark contrast to the stack of data hem in the species , which is very small-scale indeed . First described in 1872 , there have been a sparse number of unconfirmed sightings , as well as some suspecting they ’d heard the bird ’s call , but this latest appearance will no doubt be considered a very exciting sighting among the birding community of interests .
“ This is a arresting breakthrough , ” said Dr Nathaniel Annorbah of the University of Environment and Sustainable Development , Ghana . “ We ’ve been searching for this deep bird for long time in the western lowlands , so to find it here in ridgetop woods of Eastern Region is a Brobdingnagian surprise . ”
The photo was able-bodied to substantiate the Shelley ’s bird of Jove hooter ’s identity owe to the bird exhibiting its characteristic features , which let in typical black eyes , a yellow peak , and its tremendous sizing . The coinage is currently considered to be vulnerable to extinction , with its fundamental threat include habitat degradation due to human bodily function . With a population that ’s judge to sit around at just a few thousand members , conservationists desire the hooter ’s latest appearance will motivate fresh efforts to save the coinage .
On the topic of big bird of Minerva , did you get a line about Gladys , theescapee Eurasian bird of Jove bird of night , who split up out of Minnesota Zoo ?
