Srinagar, Jan 29: A Barn Owl, something rare for this summer Capital has been spotted in Batmaloo area of the City.
 The residents of Moominabad Batmaloo near the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad highway said the owl keeps coming to their houses and they occasionally catch it for typical photo sessions.
 “We have been capturing this bird for photo sessions and set it free later,” said Ubaid Khan a local, who captured the pictures.
 The residents, in a Citizen Journalist initiative, mailed pictures of the bird to the GK’s City Page desk.
 They said the bird prefers living in the rooftop of Dr Altaf Hussain Malik’s house in the area adding that coincidentally it was for the first time spotted by another doctor: Dr Junaid Ul Isam.
 Experts while confirming rarity of the bird said it was for the first time that such a bird was spotted in Srinagar.
 “This seems to be a rare incident in our City,” Director Animal Husbandry, Dr Farooq Ahmed Kaloo told Greater Kashmir.
 He said the bird could have reached the City through some load carrier coming in from outside state.
 “Truckers often carry animals like monkeys on the rooftop… May be they have brought it to Kashmir and set it free here,” Dr Kaloo added.
 As per online reports, the Barn Owl is North America's only member of the family Tytonidae (all other owls are from the Strigidae family) sometimes called the monkey-faced owl family. This is a medium sized owl that lacks ear tufts. Unlike all other owls it has a distinctive heart shaped facial disk.
 It also has relatively long legs (the only other owl with long legs is the Burrowing Owl). This is primarily a nocturnal owl although it has relatively small eyes in comparison to the other owls.
 The reports add that the females tend to be slightly darker overall than the males.
 White facial disk with brown to orange-brown border. It has dark eyes and an ivory colored bill. The under parts are white with a light pale orange or yellow wash with small gray to brown dots. The upper parts are a pale orange or yellow with a mix of light to dark gray also with small dots.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:00:00 IST