KAZIRANGA: A Bay Owl was rescued from the Bokakhat Wildlife Division and brought to the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) here on Wednesday. It was released later the same night.Eyewitnesses said they saw an uncommon bird being chased by a crow in the morning. The bird tried to fly away, but somehow dropped into a courtyard in a house on the outskirts of the town. It was picked up by residents who realised it was an owl. They promptly handed it over to forest personnel at the Bokakhat Wildlife Division office.

The assistant conservator of forests, Mr LN Baruah, immediately drove down to CWRC for treating the bird and rehabilitating it. The owl was identified as a Bay Owl (Phodilus badius) of which there seem to be no sighting records from the area. The bird was examined and found to have no external injury. It was housed in a hard paper box in a dark room. Since the bird did not have any injuries, both Mr Baruah and CWRC personnel decided to release the bird after darkness set in.

According to experts this is the first authentic record of a Bay Owl sighting in recent years in Assam. Mr Mann Baura, wellknown birdwatcher, said this was the first record of a Bay Owl sighting in Kaziranga. He said the last authentic record of this bird was from Namdapha National Park a couple of years ago. According to Dr Anwaruddin Choudhury, Bay Owls had been seen in recent times at Pakke Wildlife Sanctuary of Arunachal Pradesh and there have been some unconfirmed reports from adjacent Nameri National Park on the Assam side. According to Salim Ali and Dillon Ripley, the Bay Owl is a rare species found in Sikkim, Manipur, Nagaland, and along the banks of the Brahmaputra in Upper Assam. It is confined to heavy evergreen forests in submontane tracts and foothills.