Ashy-faced owl

The ashy-faced owl (Tyto glaucops) is a species of bird in the barn-owl family Tytonidae. It is found on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, on Dominica, and on several other islands of the Lesser Antilles.

Taxonomy and systematics
The ashy-faced owl was formally described in 1852 by the German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup and given the binomial name Strix glaucops. The specific epithet is from Ancient Greek glaukos meaning "blue-grey" or "glaucous". Kaup specified the type locality as Jamaica. This was an error and has been corrected to Hispaniola. The ashy-faced owl is now placed in the genus Tyto that was introduced in 1828 by Gustaf Johan Billberg.

The taxonomy of the ashy-faced owl is unsettled. At one time it was considered conspecific with the barn owl sensu lato (Tyto alba). After the separation the International Ornithological Committee (IOC) long treated it as monotypic but in July 2023 moved two subspecies from the American barn owl (Tyto furcata) into it. The North American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society (AOS/NACC) and the Clements taxonomy retain it as monotypic. In 2022 the AOS/NACC rejected a proposal to make that move. BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) has long treated the ashy-faced owl as having the three subspecies recognized by the IOC, and adds a fourth that the other three taxonomies do not recognize as part of any species.

This article follows the IOC treatment with these three subspecies:


 * T. g. glaucops (Kaup, 1852) – Hispaniola
 * T. g. nigrescens (Lawrence, 1878) – Dominica
 * T. g. insularis (Pelzeln, 1872) – Saint Vincent to Grenada (south Lesser Antilles)

Description
The ashy-faced owl is 27 to 33 cm long. Males weigh about 260 to 350 g and females about 460 to 540 g. Adults of the nominate subspecies T. g. glaucops have a silvery gray facial disc. Their upperparts are dark grayish brown with paler and dusky vermiculation. Their wings have buff or tawny mottling and their underparts are tawny with some darker barring. They have light, dark, and intermediate morphs. Their iris is blackish brown, their bill yellowish horn, and their legs and feet grayish brown. Juveniles are similar to adults with a darker gray face.

Subspecies T. g. insularis has a vinaceous-brown facial disc. Its upperparts are blackish gray with sparse white spots and streaks. Its wings are darker than its upperparts and have tawny mottling and feather edges. Its underparts are cinnamon-buff with dusky mottling and a few white spots. Subspecies T. g. nigrescens is very similar to insularis but has almost no white on its upperparts and less mottling on its underparts.

Distribution and habitat
The nominate subspecies of the ashy-faced owl is found on the island of Hispaniola, which is shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and on Île de la Tortue of the northwestern Haitian coast. T. g. insularis is found on the islands of St. Vincent, Bequia, Union, Carriacou, and Grenada in the southern Lesser Antilles. T. g. nigrescens is found on the island of Dominica in the north-central Lesser Antilles.

On Hispaniola the ashy-faced owl inhabits a wide variety of landscapes, both natural and human-altered. The former include open woodlands, denser broadleaf forest, and scrublands. The latter includes farmlands, oil-palm plantations, solitary buildings, and villages and towns. In elevation it ranges from sea level to 2000 m. The other two subspecies also use essentially all available habitats on their small islands.

Movement
The ashy-faced owl is a year-round resident throughout its range, though on Hispaniola young may disperse quite widely from their natal site.

Feeding
The ashy-faced owl is primarily a nocturnal hunter, though in the absence of competing diurnal predators some may hunt during the day. Its diet is mostly small vertebrates including mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians, but it also feeds on invertebrates. A study published in 2010 compared the diets of ashy-faced and barn owls in the Dominican Republic. (Barn owls had first arrive on Hispaniola around 1950.) The author examined the regurgitated pellets the owls produce, which contain the undigested bones, fur, and feathers of their prey. It was found that they each consume over 100 species of prey, with 92 species being in common between the two. Small mammals predominated in both diets, particularly so in the American barn owl, and made up the greatest proportion of the biomass. Both caught a similar proportion of bats, but the ashy-faced owl caught more birds. Amphibians and reptiles were also consumed more often by the ashy-faced owl than by the American barn owl. No conclusion could be reached as to whether the competition for food caused by the arrival of the American barn owl was detrimental to the native species.

Breeding
The nominate subspecies of the ashy-faced owl on Hispaniola breeds mostly between January and June. Eggs of T. g. nigrescens have been reported in September and nestlings in April. There are no data specific to the breeding season of T. g. insularis. The ashy-faced owl nests in cavities, both natural and human-made. Natural holes in tree trunks and branches, the walls of sinkholes, earthen banks, and cliffs are used. The species also nests in human structures such as barns, church steeples, abandoned buildings, nest boxes provided for them, and even the attics of occupied dwellings.

Vocalization
On Hispaniola the ashy-faced owl makes a "hissing cry, prefaced by a series of higher-pitched ratchety clicks and a c. 2–3 seconds screeching call likened to criiisssssh. Other vocalizations of the nominate subspecies and those of the other two subspecies have not been well studied, but anecdotally include a wide variety of "screeches, wheezes, purrs, snores, twitters, hisses and yelps".

Status
The IUCN has assessed the ashy-face owl as being of Least Concern. Though it has a somewhat limited range and its population size is not known, the latter is believed to be stable. No immediate threats have been identified. The species is "[w]idespread and locally common on Hispaniola". The "[s]tatus of Lesser Antillean subspecies [are] insufficiently known, but nigrescens appears to be common on Dominica, whereas insularis is rare on St Vincent and Grenada and in Grenadines, and might be vulnerable to habitat destruction and pesticide usage."