Brown Fish-Owl

Brown Fish-Owl

Ketupa zeylonensis

Silhouette: Ferran Sayol · PhyloPic

LCLeast ConcernNTVUENCR
Daily sighting probability <5% · Rare
at Kathmandu

In 3 days <5%

7 Verified sightings at Kathmandu
2,602 In all 19 parks From 2019 to 2026
February Best month
🌅 Crepuscular When it's spotted

About the Brown Fish-Owl

The brown fish owl (Ketupa zeylonensis) is a fish owl species in the family known as typical owls, Strigidae. It is native from Turkey to South and Southeast Asia. Due its wide distribution it is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. It inhabits forests and wooded wetlands. Of the four living species of fish owl, it is the most widely distributed, most common and best-studied. It occupies a range of over 7,000 km (4,300 mi).

The brown fish owl was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the other owls in the genus Strix and coined the binomial name Strix zeylonensis. Gmelin based his description on the "Great Ceylonese horned owl" that had been described and illustrated by the naturalist Peter Brown in his book New Illustrations of Zoology. Joan Gideon Loten, an administrator in the Dutch East India Company had provided Brown with a picture of the owl that had been drawn by the Ceylonese artist Pieter Cornelis de Bevere. The brown fish owl is now placed in the genus Ketupa that was introduced in 1830 by the French naturalist René Lesson... Wikipedia →

Sounds

Duet0:06

China · 2021

© Geoff Carey · XC824089 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Call0:15

India · 2017

© Vishal Jadhav · XC361783 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Alarm call0:15

Vietnam · 2020

© Marta Celej · XC593653 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Global Distribution

Parks Where Found

# Park Country Daily sighting probability
1 Wilpattu National Park 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka
~30%
2 Ranthambore National Park 🇮🇳 India
~20%
3 Bandhavgarh National Park 🇮🇳 India
~20%
4 Gir National Park 🇮🇳 India
~10%
5 Mudumalai National Park 🇮🇳 India
~10%
6 Minneriya National Park 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka
~10%
7 Jim Corbett National Park 🇮🇳 India
~10%
8 Royal Bardia National Park 🇳🇵 Nepal
~10%
9 Yala National Park 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka
~10%
10 Nagarhole National Park 🇮🇳 India
~10%
11 Kanha National Park 🇮🇳 India
~10%
12 Periyar National Park 🇮🇳 India
~10%
13 Kaziranga National Park 🇮🇳 India
~10%
14 Bandipur National Park 🇮🇳 India
~10%
15 Udawalawe National Park 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka
<5%
16 Chitwan National Park 🇳🇵 Nepal
<5%
17 Satpura National Park 🇮🇳 India
<5%
18 Sinharaja Forest Reserve 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka
<5%
19 Manas National Park 🇮🇳 India
<5%

Cities Where Found

# City Country Daily sighting probability
1 Savar 🇧🇩 Bangladesh
~10%
2 Thrissur 🇮🇳 India
<5%
3 Dehradun 🇮🇳 India
<5%
4 Kozhikode 🇮🇳 India
<5%
5 Lucknow 🇮🇳 India
<5%
6 Kathmandu 🇳🇵 Nepal
<5%

Zoos & Centres Where Found

# Zoo / Centre Country
1 Walsrode World Bird Park 🇩🇪 Germany In captivity
2 Assam State Zoo cum Botanical Garden 🇮🇳 India In captivity
3 Nehru Zoological Park 🇮🇳 India In captivity
4 Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden 🇭🇰 Hong Kong SAR China In captivity
5 Thiruvananthapuram Zoo 🇮🇳 India In captivity
6 National Zoological Gardens of Sri Lanka 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka In captivity
7 Thrissur Zoo 🇮🇳 India In captivity
8 Parassinikkadavu Snake Park 🇮🇳 India In captivity

Before you go

What are the chances of seeing a Brown Fish-Owl in Kathmandu?

Rare

Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Brown Fish-Owl sighting in Kathmandu on a given day, based on 7 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 297th most-seen of the 312 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, if each day is a fresh chance.

When is the best time to see a Brown Fish-Owl in Kathmandu?

Any time of year

In every month with enough records, under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Brown Fish-Owl in Kathmandu on a given day, so our monthly data shows no clear season.

What time of day is best to see a Brown Fish-Owl?

Between noon and 3 pm

Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Brown Fish-Owl sightings with a recorded time, and about 7 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is most active around dawn and dusk.

Is Kathmandu the best place to see a Brown Fish-Owl?

6th of 6

Of the 6 cities where we can rate Brown Fish-Owl sightings, Kathmandu ranks 6th at under 5%. The best odds are in Savar (Bangladesh, about 10%), Thrissur (India, under 5%) and Dehradun (India, under 5%).

Where does the Brown Fish-Owl sighting chance come from?

GBIF citizen-science records

It is estimated from how often the Brown Fish-Owl is recorded against all the birds logged in Kathmandu (7 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.

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