Nesting of Rufous-legged owls in evergreen Nothofagus forests

BEAUDOIN, F Y V. OJEDA

JOURNAL OF RAPTOR RESEARCH

RAPTOR RESEARCH FOUNDATION INC

Lugar: Lawrence, Kansas; Año: 2011 vol. 45 p. 272 - 274

0892-1016

Many species of the genus Strix are strongly affiliated with and adapted to forest habitats. The lack of large tree cavities in human-altered forests has been proposed as limiting populations of several species. The Rufous-legged Owl (Strix rufipes) is endemic to the Austral temperate forests of southern Chile and Argentina and is the southernmost Strix species. Most studies on this owl have focused on its foraging ecology and little is known about its breeding ecology. Anecdotal reports suggest that Rufous-legged Owls may nest in top cavities of decayed trees. The first descriptions of active nests were from the highly modified landscapes of south-central Chile: two ground-nests in exotic Monterrey pine (Pinus radiata) plantations and a nest in a second-growth hualo (Nothofagus glauca) forest surrounded by pine plantations, all with unreported success. The only breeding record from Argentina was a nest in a young forest with few snags remaining from a fire that occurred about 40 yrs previously. A record of Rufous-legged Owls using “old falconid nests in Argentina” (La Pampa Province) pertained to S. chacoensis, formerly included as a subspecies of S. rufipes. Here we present the first descriptions of successful nests of S. rufipes from unmanaged native forest.