Forest dwellers living in the Seshachalam forest or Madhumalai or Nagarjunasagar Srisailam or Tiger Reserve(NSTR) in South India sometimes hear clairvoyance sounds like a human scream. This is not a ghostly act.
- This, in fact, is a call of an endangered bird ‘Spot Bellied Eagle Owl’ (Bubo Nipalensis).
- A wildlife team recently stumbled upon a ‘Spot Bellied Eagle Owl’ (Bubo Nipalensis) for the first time in the Seshachalam forest, and for the third time in Andhra Pradesh.
- The bird’s habitat, found on large trees in thick forests, is spread across the Indian subcontinent. But it was sighted only twice in the State earlier, and both times it was at Nagarjunasagar Srisailam Tiger Reserve(NSTR).
- The bold predatory bird, measuring 20-25 inches in length and weighing between 1.5 kg and 2 kg feeds on small rodents and lizards.
- The bird makes a strange scream similar to humans and it is hence called the ‘Ghost of the Forest’ in India and ‘Devil Bird’ in Sri Lanka.
