Ketupa zeylonensis
Silhouette: Ferran Sayol · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
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 →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wilpattu National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 2 | Ranthambore National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 3 | Bandhavgarh National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 4 | Gir National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Mudumalai National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Minneriya National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 7 | Jim Corbett National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Royal Bardia National Park | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 9 | Yala National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 10 | Nagarhole National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 11 | Kanha National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 12 | Periyar National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 13 | Kaziranga National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 14 | Bandipur National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 15 | Udawalawe National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 16 | Chitwan National Park | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 17 | Satpura National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 18 | Sinharaja Forest Reserve | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 19 | Manas National Park | 🇮🇳 India |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Walsrode World Bird Park | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 2 | Assam State Zoo cum Botanical Garden | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 3 | Nehru Zoological Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 4 | Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden | 🇭🇰 Hong Kong SAR China | |
| 5 | Thiruvananthapuram Zoo | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | National Zoological Gardens of Sri Lanka | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 7 | Thrissur Zoo | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Parassinikkadavu Snake Park | 🇮🇳 India |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Brown Fish-Owl sighting in Sinharaja Forest Reserve on a given day, based on 53 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 113th most-seen of the 156 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 20%, if each day is a fresh chance.
April and August
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Brown Fish-Owl in Sinharaja Forest Reserve on a given day, against under 5% in May–July and September–March, the lowest months.
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.
18th of 19
Of the 19 parks where we can rate Brown Fish-Owl sightings, Sinharaja Forest Reserve ranks 18th at under 5%. The best odds are in Wilpattu National Park (Sri Lanka, about 30%), Ranthambore National Park (India, about 20%) and Bandhavgarh National Park (India, about 20%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Brown Fish-Owl is recorded against all the birds logged in Sinharaja Forest Reserve (53 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), 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.
