A round dozen of us decided to go to Turahalli, yesterday morning (we’d also had a great time at the Zoo area on Saturday morning…. more about that later!)

For the first hour or two, though the outing was really enjoyable and we sighted quite a variety of butterflies, the bird sightings were countable without using the fingers on the second hand! But of course, we had a treat in store. As we went on after climbing to the top of the hill, a vision sailed past us and landed on a rock to our left: It was beautifully backlit by the morning light of the eastern sky: Now, my friend Amith Kumar has raised a valid question. I've always known this bird as the EURASIAN EAGLE OWL (Bubo bubo) but lo and behold, the Wiki does not list India as a territory for this bird at all! Amith said that this was the INDIAN EAGLE OWL the scientific name of which is Bubo bengalensis ....I had not known that there was such a classfication, and so I looked up the wiki entry. So...what should this bird be called, I wonder?The surprising thing is that the bird books do not list anything called the Indian Eagle Owl, only the Eurasian Eagle Owl. I've asked the experts, and hope for a reply! This Eagle Owl is similar in both size and appearance to the Great Horned Owls that I've been looking at, with the help of Mark Glenshaw, in Forest Park in St.Louis. (That one is Bubo virginianus.) Here's a short video of the magnificient bird (this must be a female) </lj> Well, an owl by any other name is just as magnificient to behold, and we feasted our eyes on the sight of the huge bird, sitting comfortably, far enough away not to be bothered by us...right out in the open on a sunny morning, which is a rare thing to happen!