The Science of Birds - Random Bird Thursday: A Crepuscular Species That Is Not Actually Magical

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

In each Random Bird Thursday (RBT) episode, the goal is to highlight a bird species that probably isn't going to get featured in a full-length podcast episode. These are birds we might overlook, even though they certainly deserve some appreciation and attention. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~⚠️ SPOILER ALERT!The featured species in this episode is the Jungle Owlet (Glaucidium radiatum).Sound Citations:Dr S S Suresh, XC1102415. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/1102415Swami Bogim, XC1037332. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/1037332.Support the show

Hello and welcome. This is the Science of Birds. I am your host, Ivan Philipson. The Science of Birds podcast is a lighthearted exploration of bird biology for lifelong learners. And hey, guess what? It's Random Bird Thursday. Random Bird Thursday episodes are relatively short and sweet. In these episodes, I spotlight a bird species that probably won't get featured in

one of my full-length episodes, because there are over 11,000 bird species in the world. And we want to celebrate all of them, but time is limited, so random bird Thursday gives us a chance to celebrate a species that we might otherwise overlook. Now, if this episode sounds a little different, that's because I'm recording it in a hotel room in Romania. I'm on the 14th floor right now looking out over the Black Sea. This is my first time in Romania. It's really cool. I am here scouting for a future birding tour. So perhaps I will make a episode about my experiences here birding in Romania. So stay tuned for that. But right now we're talking about, well, who are we talking about? Well, we have to find out by pushing the random bird selector button. So here we go.

Okay, we have an owl. We have the jungle owlet. Not to be confused with the jungle towelet. That would be something you would use to wipe the sweat off your brow when you're hacking your way through the jungle or the machete. That's a towelet, but we're talking about the jungle owlet. Glauquidium radiatum. This is an Asian species found throughout most of India and in the central Himalayan mountains. All right, here we go.

Let's get into it. The jungle owlet is a small squat species with a rounded head and it doesn't have any sort of ears, right? It doesn't have any ear tufts. You probably know that when we have owls with what appear to be ears, like on the Great Horned Owl, those are not actually ears. They're just tufts of feathers. But the jungle outlet does not have that. When this species is flying around, it has a swift direct flight, which looks more like a small hawk, like an occipiter, rather than your typical owl. So when we say small, we mean about 8 to 9 inches from beak to tail, or 20 to 22 centimeters, so pretty small.

The plumage on this bird is pretty jazzy. It's got really dense, fine barring over its entire. body. So densely packed black bars on the back, on the head, on the breast, all over the place. Overall, the bird is grayish brown and the wings have a bit more rufous color in them. There's a pretty bold white patch on the chin and some subtle white feathers over the eyes, so like a supercilium. And the center of the breasts or the abdomen is also white. When the jungle owlet is flying, it has a conspicuous rufous or reddish patch on the underwing. The eyes are bright yellow. The legs have feathers nearly down to the toes, and the legs are greenish yellow and the claws are black.

Many other owlets, close relatives of the jungle outlet, have what are called ocelli on the back of the head. This is a pair of patches of feathers that look like. big eyes. Ornithologists think that these are a form of camouflage that would perhaps ward off any predators that might want to eat the owl, because it looks like even when the owl is facing away that it can actually see the predator coming, something like that. But the jungle owllet does not have Ocelai. Okay, now let's listen to the voice of the jungle outlet. We've got a couple recordings here. This first one was recorded in southwest India. And so here we go. And we have another recording. This one was made in the coastal area of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The jungle owllet is

primarily crepuscular. Remember that crepuscular means active in the sort of twilight hours. So in the case of this owl, it's most active an hour before dusk and an hour after. sunrise, and that is typical crepuscular behavior. Jungle owlets roost in tree cavities, and when they're disturbed or frightened, they tend to freeze so that they look like a dead tree stump, like a broken branch or something, so that's their camouflage. You might sometimes see these birds perching on wires during the day or basking in the morning sun.

And sometimes during the day, you can find one of these owls by listening. for the mobbing calls of other birds. Because birds like drongos and tree pies will harass a jungle outlet that's just minding its own business, they'll mob the outlet and as birders we can tune into the mobbing and then locate the owl. And that's not just true for the jungle outlet. That's something we can do with owls all around the world. Okay, now let's get into talking about the name of this bird, its distribution, habitat, conservation, all of that. So jungle owl it, right? Of course, owlit means a small owl. There are owlets in three genera in total, right, that have owlet in their common name. But most of what we call outlets are in the same genus as the jungle owlet, and that is glauquitium. Other species in that same genus can be called pygmy owls. So a familiar species in North America is the northern pigmy. owl glauquidium gnomah that's found throughout western North America. And then in parts of Europe

and Asia, a common species there is the Eurasian pygmy owl glauquidium passerinum. So pygmy owls, owlets, the theme there is that they're very small. Now what about the jungle part, right? That refers to the bird's habitat, of course, and we'll come back to that in just a moment. So the scientific name is, again, glauquidium radiatum. Glacidium comes from the ancient Greek word glauquition, and that translates as little owl. So that's pretty straightforward. Radiatum means, well, that's also Greek, and that means furnished with rays, right?

Like rays coming out of the sun. So we interpret that as meaning barred, right? This bird has those black bars all over its body. body. So radiatum is a good name for it. So owls in the genus glauquidium like our jungle owlet are in the family, stridji. That's the family of typical owls. And if you'd like to learn more about that, check out episode 88 of the Science of Birds podcast, where we talked all about owls. That's a very popular episode because people love owls. So within the genus glauquitium, who are the closest relatives of the jungle owlet? Well, as far as I know, I'm

there's only one species we can really point to, and that is the chestnut-backed owlet, glauquidium castanotum. That's most likely the closest relative, and in fact, these two birds were once treated as the same species. The chestnut-backed owlet, however, lives only in Sri Lanka. Now, there's not a lot we know about the evolution of this species, the jungle outlet. I mean, really, there's not a lot we know about it, period. But there was one study where they used genomic data from this species as well as the spotted owlet, which is a Theni Brahma, so in a different genus. And they looked at the population expansion of these species using genomic data. And I can't get into all the details, but you can use genetic data to estimate population size

over time using some sophisticated analyses. So it looks like from the genomic data that the jungle outlet grew from a relatively small population of about 15,000 birds during the last interglacial period of the ice ages, right? So roughly 120,000 years ago, during a time when the ice had receded and things had warmed up a bit, we can trace back the ancestry of these owls to at least that time. And the population grew from that point to about 160,000 individuals. So over 10 times by about 6,000 years ago. That's what the genomic data tells us. And in that same study, the researchers talked about or they demonstrated how the spotted outlet, which again is Athenibrama, so not a super close relative, but it does

live in the same places that the jungle outlet lives generally. So we would say these species are simpatrick. They live in the same area. Well, the spotted outlet expanded during the arid glacial maxima. So when the glaciers were at their peak and certain areas were dry, that's when the spotted owlet expanded. And during that time, the jungle outlet had a population that was restricted to moist dry forests and scrublands that existed during those periods. So the jungle outlet found a refuge in those places. So those types of habitats would be what we would call Refugia. Now, as for its modern-day distribution, the jungle outlet lives all across the Indian subcontinent. So that includes India as well as Sri Lanka, and it gets into Nepal, Bhutan, and

maybe a bit of western Myanmar. And there are two subspecies within the jungle outlet. The nominate subspecies is glauquidium radiatum, and that one is found. It's pretty widespread. And the second subspecies is glauquidium, radiatum, malabaricum, and that is found in a relatively small area of just the western Ghats, the mountain range in the southwestern India. So it's called a jungle outlet, right? So you're picturing, you know, the jungle cruise, the jungle book,

really dense, wet, tropical rainforest with vines everywhere. Well, maybe this bird is a little bit misnamed because it's actual primary habitat is dense secondary deciduous forests located in the foothills. They also get up into sub-montane forests as well as scrub and bamboo areas. So not really what most of us imagine when we think of jungle, when we think of that kind of really wet evergreen rainforest. But that's okay. It is what it is. It's called the jungle outlet. It's a great name. So I guess we can keep it. I guess it all depends on how you define jungle. In any case, this bird is resident in the quote-unquote jungle. It is a non-migratory species, so it lives in the same areas year-round.

Conservationists have classified this bird as being least concerned, so that's the IUCN species status. And that's good news. That means it's not in immediate danger of going extinct. However, there are, of course, some serious threats that this species faces. The biggest threat is probably one that you can guess, because it's one that affects many species, if not most species around the world, and that is habitat loss, habitat degradation, destruction, and loss. And because this is a primarily forest species, that means deforestation. But there is another threat that you might not predict, and that is the problem of

traditional ethnozoological uses. Ethnozoological. What does that mean? Well, like ethnicity, right? And then zoological referring to animals. So this is the, these are things that relate to human use and interaction with animals. In other realms, we talk about ethnobotany. I guess we could get more specific and say we're talking right now about ethno ornithology. Well, in any case, in some regions of the Western Himalayas in the mountains, like Jammu and Kashmir, this owl it has a unique cultural and, some believe, magical significance. Now, that sounds lovely, that sounds nice, like, oh, the people think this bird is magical, it's wonderful, they revere it.

Sure, maybe, cool, but it turns out that what the people actually do is they kill the owls to use their body parts for various things. So in a particular, there's a particular group of people called the Doga, and they live in the Western Himalayas, and this species is particularly important to them, and they use different parts for their magic. So magicians will use parts of the owl to protect children, for example, from the evil eye.

The eyes of the owls are used for night blindness, the bile of the owls is used for particular ailments, and the claws are used for various magical and ritualistic purposes. So, yeah, even though, you know, we all love culture and traditional things, yeah, it's not so great for the owls that they are considered magical. It's bad news for them. Because it turns out that the level of harvesting that's going on in these communities is unsustainable. More owls are being killed than can be replaced by their natural population growth. So let's hope that that cultural practice will change and the owls can be appreciated in their living

form rather than for their body parts. Okay, so let's move now to what these birds eat. The jungle owlet is primarily an insect connoisseur. It eats beetles, locusts, crasshoppers, cicadas, and other kinds of invertebrates. But it will also eat some reptiles like lizards and skinks, some small birds like little warblers, like leaf warblers, phylloscopus warblers, as well as some rodents and amphibians. And because this is a crepuscular hunter, that means it's hunting for these things around dawn and dusk. But it will also catch some small birds that are active during the day. Now, what about breeding?

We don't actually know a lot about the breeding behavior of this bird. As I said, there's not a ton of information just on this species, period, but we certainly don't know a lot about how they breed. They're often seen in pairs during the breeding season, so we assume that this is a monogamous species. We know they nest in cavities, and there appears to be some territoriality in the breeding season where individuals use this kind of quack call, K-W-A-K is how it's described, to establish their presence in the area. And once breeding happens, we get a typical clutch size of

three eggs with a range of two to four. And that's about it. We don't know a whole lot else about parental care, about the chicks and about lifespan, all that good stuff that I like to usually talk about. So hopefully someday some brave ornithologists will get out there and learn more about this species. This is a bird that I have seen in the wild. I actually, I thought I saw it in Bhutan, but I went back to my e-bird records. This is why it's great to have e-bird. I went back and I realized that no.

Actually, I saw it in Nepal in Chitwan National Park. This was a little over a year ago. And it was a great day. I had some local guides. I was just there scouting by myself. I got to see the Indian rhinoceros for the first time. which was really amazing. There were tiger tracks on the ground, elephants bellowing in the distance, and tons of birds. I think as my e-bird lists go, of the thousands of lists that I have, this one is

one of the most amazing. I think I've got, you know, 60 plus species on that list, many of which were new to me that day. So yeah, the jungle outlet. That's the only time I ever saw it. And it was really cool, really a special day in Chitwan National Park in Nepal. about you? Have you seen a jungle outlet? If so, let me know. Shoot me an email. And that's what we have for Random Bird Thursday number 14 with a jungle

outlet. Short and sweet, as I said. And now I will bid you adieu and talk to you next time. I'm going to go check out some birds here in Romania. Cheers.