Art Magnet - Morepork & Laughing Owl
Art Magnet - Morepork & Laughing Owl.
Rubber.
Morepork.
The morepork is a small, dark, forest-dwelling owl. Found in both native and plantation forests, its distinctive “more-pork” call is commonly heard at night in many urban parks and well-vegetated suburbs. Moreporks are relatively common throughout much of New Zealand but are sparse through the eastern and central South Island. Their diet consists of insects, small mammals and birds, which it hunts at night.
Identification
The morepork is a small, compact, dark-brown owl. Its striking yellow to yellowish-green eyes are set into two facial disks either side of a small sharply hooked bill. The back feathers are dark-brown spotted sparsely with off-white. The breast is dark-brown variably streaked with cream and brown through to rufous. The legs are feathered legs down to the yellow feet.
Voice: Calls are given almost exclusively at night. The onomatopoeic ‘more-pork’ call is the most characteristic and often heard call. They also utter a repetitive ‘quork-quork’, a rising ‘quee’ call often confused with kiwi, and a yelping call similar to the short call of little owl.
Similar species: little owls are the only other small species of owl in New Zealand. They are paler than morepork, more grey-brown than dark-brown, and heavily spotted and streaked with cream. They are found only in open habitats in South Island, with minimal range overlap with morepork. The rising ‘quee’ call is often mistaken for a kiwi call.
Laughing Owl.
The laughing owl was originally placed in the monotypic genus Sceloglaux, but recent genetic analysis showed that it is nested within the genus Ninox and the authors recommended that it be referred to as Ninox albifacies. This recommendation is under consideration by the Birds New Zealand Checklist Committee.
The common name of the laughing owl referred to its call, described by a contemporary naturalist as a “loud cry made up of a series of dismal shrieks frequently repeated.” The birds were still common in the South Island in the mid-1800s, but declined rapidly thereafter. The last confirmed record was a dead specimen from South Canterbury found in 1914, but sight and sound records continued to be reported from both islands into the 1930s. Laughing owls coexisted with early European settlement, but the introduction of stoats, ferrets, and weasels is thought to have led to their extinction.
Identification.
Laughing owls were about twice the size of a morepork. Adults were dark brown above with buff-yellow longitudinal stripes; each feather had a brown centre almost to the tip and a broad buff-yellow edge. The underparts were yellowish-brown to buff, prominently streaked with dark brown or reddish-brown. The wings and tail were brown with paler bars. The legs were covered to the toes with bristly pale yellow feathers. The facial disk was pale apart from thin, dark brown shaft-streaks. Newly hatched young were sparsely covered with coarse, yellowish-white down.
Voice: a loud and varied repertoire included “doleful shrieks”, a “prolonged cack-cack-cack” which was reportedly repeated incessantly on rainy nights, a call similar to “two men cooeying to each other over a distance” given by a captive pair at dusk, and a barking noise “just like the yelping of a young dog”.
Similar species: morepork is half the size and much darker, especially on the face and underparts. Barn owl is much paler, almost white underneath.
Distribution and habitat.
Originally found throughout New Zealand, but by the time Europeans arrived laughing owls were only recorded south of a line from Taranaki to East Cape in the North Island, and in Nelson, Marlborough, east of the main divide in the South Island, and on Stewart Island. Laughing owls lived in both open country and forested areas. They roosted in caves or fissures in rock faces and on rock ledges.
Size 9cm H x 6.5 cm W.