Pacific Screech-Owl

Megascops cooperi

eBird describes the Pacific Screech-Owl like this:  Medium-sized owl with short ear tufts and yellow eyes. Plumage much like other screech-owls, but relatively pale and grayish overall. Fairly common in scrubby woodland and thorn forest along the edge of the Pacific Slope lowlands. Usually detected by its gruff, bouncing-ball song. No other screech-owls occur within its range and habitat.

The Birds of the World website introduces the Pacific Screech-Owl with this descriptive information:  Formerly placed in the genus Otus, which is now reserved for Old World scops owls, the Pacific Screech-Owl is found in dry woodland, semi-open country, secondary vegetation and lakeside fields. Although this species has a relatively small contiguous range, two subspecies are recognized, although a third, which is very poorly differentiated, is sometimes recognized. The two recognized subspecies have occasionally been treated at species rank. Strictly nocturnal, this owl is rarely seen or heard during the day. A small-bodied species, Pacific Screech-Owl feeds mainly on insects, including beetles, katydids, moths, and scorpions, but it has powerful talons, and is known to also hunt small rodents. Cavity-nesters, the species often takes over old woodpecker cavities for their own nests.

I met, and photographed, my first Pacific Screech-Owl  on the afternoon of Saturday, February 11, 2023 in Costa Rica.  Our birding group with Tropical Birding Tours was making our way from Hotel Villa Lapas  up to the Monteverde area when we spotted and watched this bird.  Our tour guide had been tipped off to the general location of the nest and we had little trouble finding it, right beside a well traveled road.